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.