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Ole Miss Football: How does Hugh Freeze news affect SEC?

By Matthew Bartlett

NEW ORLEANS, LA - JANUARY 01: Head coach Hugh Freeze of the Mississippi Rebels looks on during the third quarter against the Oklahoma State Cowboys of the Allstate Sugar Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 1, 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
NEW ORLEANS, LA - JANUARY 01: Head coach Hugh Freeze of the Mississippi Rebels looks on during the third quarter against the Oklahoma State Cowboys of the Allstate Sugar Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 1, 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images) /
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Ole Miss football is already under a self-imposed bowl ban in 2017. What additional questions are raised for the SEC with Hugh Freeze’s sudden resignation?

The Rebels were already in the midst of an NCAA investigation when Hugh Freeze resigned amid new allegations on Thursday. Now that the final dominoes have dropped, it’s time to assess the impact on the rest of the conference.

First off is the implications for Ole Miss itself. The program is now in full rebuild mode. Gone are the days of landing top recruits, and it’s going to be tough to convince a big name coach to enter in to such a precarious situation. A silver lining: the bowl ban will expire at the end of this season, so the incoming coach wouldn’t have the cloud that hung over Bill O’Brien at Penn State.

More: Houston Nutt sues Ole Miss

Any time something of this magnitude happens it’s going to create a ripple effect throughout the conference. Its no different from any other realm of employment. An office scandal will quickly make its way around the water cooler. This is going to reverberate around the SEC for weeks and months to come.

How do you think rules get created? Because of the decisions of the few others must modify their behaviors. The mess left at Ole Miss might not lead to phone restrictions for any other coaches in the conference, but the effects of Hugh Freeze’s resignation are going to be felt for a long while.

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