The funniest thing to me is that it still all goes back to firing Cutcliffe

Think about it. Just a collosal mistake that happened almost 13 years ago now that still has wide reaching ramifications to this day. Cutcliffe refused to let #TheNetwork make hiring and firing decisions for his staff after one bad year, and was canned for it.

So they bring on Eddie O, who initially gets Freeze his foot in the door at OM. Recruiting picks up, but O has no leadersship and therefore no on-field success to show for it. The program after O's 3rd year is in even worse shape than after Cut's firing in 2004.

So then we see HDN take the reigns and have some initial success with O's recruits, but no gameplan for continuing that recruiting or building any particular identity for what he wanted to do on either side of the ball. Total trainwreck ensues in 2010 and 2011, even with a former Heisman candidate QB-ing one of those years. Nutt is fired in 2011 with the state of the program being even worse than it was when Oregeron was fired in 2007. Noticing a trend yet?

And so, that brings us to Freeze, and the current state of affairs which has played out and will continue to play out as the NCAA ruling and the Nutt lawsuit continue to unfold. There is no question that the state of the OM football program will be several stages below any of the darkest points of the Orgeron or Nutt eras when all is said and done. But never forget the singular event that led to Freeze and subsequently Houston Nutt arriving to Ole Miss. They had a coach who actually was a great offensive mind, a decent man, and a proven winner. When The Network realuzed they couldn't pull his strings, they assured their own destruction 3 times over by getting rid of him. The ultimate irony.

Well said, true.

The thing about Cutcliffe is I'm not sure how much their fans were ever really sold on him. They wanted him to make sure that they could get Eli after Peyton chose Tennessee a few years before so they put up with him at least while Eli was there. Cutcliffe ironically built their team and program in a similar way to how Dan is building ours currently. They were getting a lot of Mississippi recruits and it was probably a more sustainable model for them. They fired Cutcliffe after they won the Egg Bowl in 2004- think about that.

Their Network is always going to be their ultimate downfall. It's not a sustainable model and it's highly risky because you end up cheating out the wazoo which either leads to probation or players that are basically mercenaries that don't give a damn in exchange for a good two-three year run followed by a massive dumpster fire. In this case, they pushed the envelope and essentially have traded a Peach Bowl appearance and a Sugar Bowl win for at least 10 years of sucking and what could very well end up being the darkest moment for their football program. Especially if things keep getting worse as rumored- and at this point I have no reason to doubt that they won't.

In the meantime we're set up for a very nice run especially if the 2019 class is as good as advertised along with winning the 2017 and 2018 classes to go along with it. By the time 2019 rolls around they will either be coming off of the appeals process with Luke in year two or they will be starting probation and will only have around 15 spots to use on recruits. And even worse for them there appears to be only one elite 2019 player in the Oxford area- and he's a MSU lean- plus no obvious Ole Miss legacies that are impact players at this time.

Second dumbest thing the ever did.