Actually the total number was in the hundreds. He called 12 different services in different towns.
It is assumed it was for personal services, not recruits. There was no need to provide women for recruits, since the Ole Miss co-eds would do that for free. 
It seems clear that Freeze was the college football equivalent of the traveling salesman with a girlfriend in every town. Only he was paying for his time with those girlfriends. As I posted, and was roundly ridiculed for, when the story first broke, there is no evidence whatsoever that this had anything to do with recruiting other than he was out of town recruiting when he called these girlfriends for hire. Should he have lost his job for this? Maybe not if it it only happened once or twice, but we see a long-term pattern here from a coach who professes to be highly moral and religious.
The reason you were ridiculed is that your opinion was premised on taking a bunch of liars at their word as soon as the news broke. They’ve earned a healthy dose of cynicism.
You say there’s absolutely no evidence. You probably mean no direct evidence. I would argue there’s circumstantial evidence.
That’s evidence and it’s often (if there is enough of it) enough to send men to jail–not just NCAA purgatory.
I’m not suggesting Freeze did anything criminal. I’m reiterating that circumstantial evidence is evidence.
I don’t know if there is a connection between the escort activity and the recruits but I’m not going to take their word for it, particularly when some of the calls occurred when Freeze was visiting players who flipped commitments out of the blue.
Louisville was doing it. Would you really automatically put it past OM to do it?
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if OM was using strippers and escorts in recruiting. In fact, given what we know, I would be more surprised if they weren’t.
But, OM and Freeze promised that none of these misdeeds involved recruiting. So that’s that, I guess.
Nevermind the fact that they previously denied several recruiting violations that later have either proven to be true or will proven to be true, soon.
If it was a civil trial, and the only evidence you had to prove he was hiring hookers for recruits was those phone records, the case would get dismissed without ever getting to the jury. Even using circumstantial evidence a jury’s verdict can’t be based on speculation, and speculation is all there has ever been to connect the hookers with the recruits in the Ole Miss affair. Until there is some actual evidence to link an escort with a recruit, all you have are two actions by the same person in the same general area during a given time period. If he had run up a $300 bar tab that weekend that would in no way mean he was buying the recruits drinks in the bar.
The entire theory does not pass the smell test. It is one thing to hand the recruit/his handlers a wad of cash, it’s quite another to go into the recruit’s home town or area and bring in hookers from a commercial service in the area run by strangers. Just too many people who could blab about the whole thing, and who have no real motivation to help Ole Miss or Freeze. Plus you run a real risk of parents, coaches etc. finding out, which really could cause trouble since most of the recruits are teen agers and might not see it as a harmless little perk for considering Ole Miss.
Now if Freeze had used the Louisville basketball model and hired pros for parties on campus, that might make a little more sense, though it still seems pretty shaky given the amount of amateur talent on campus at Ole Miss. But so far there is zero evidence that any Freeze was bringing escorts into Oxford during recruiting visits.
You make several good points. I’m sure some enterprising reporter is trying to find one of the escorts who is willing to talk. Then we’ll see.
Snake oil salesman… a complete FRAUD… SLEEZY FREEZY! Freeze the Sleaze!
Freeze is a fraud of the worst order. If he thought he could’ve gotten away with using hookers to lure recruits, I have no doubt he would have. However, I don’t think there’s even enough circumstantial evidence to say he did it in recruiting. I’m not taking anyone’s word for his innocence. I just don’t think there’s enough there to say he did. If he were going to do it, though, it’s not likely he’d have been doing it himself. That’s what one would have to believe if we’re basing the conclusion on his phone records. I think he’s just a cheater. Condoned & probably encouraged it among others to get recruits & cheated personally on his wife. One needn’t think he’s above the crime to think the evidence is lacking.
There are reasons that Coach Petrino and Coach Freeze are no longer coaching at their SEC stops.
I obviously know for one of these guys that it was more than just the girlfriend/car/job, but a pattern of misbehavior from the first season.
I also doubt Coach Freeze’s calls to escort services was his only off-field issue, but more likely the discovery was the last straw of a pattern of misbehavior.
I am mostly responding to buzzard when I say this but I never said there was enough evidence for a conviction in criminal court or for a judgment in civil court.
All I am saying is there is a difference in not yet having direct evidence and there being absolutely no evidence. Circumstantial evidence is evidence. Facts that tend to show consciousness of guilt are important.
I think it is notable that they axed him quickly after this even though they had stuck with him through lots of things throughout the process and coaches of similar stature had survived similar scandals.
I doubt even he was dumb enough to make calls directly to escorts on behalf of recruits. But, when it comes to credibility he has none and I am not going to simply take his word or OM’s word for it that he did not make any inappropriate calls in recruiting.
That’s my primary point. They are proven liars and I cannot believe anyone would automatically trust them simply because they said something is a fact.
We don’t know what evidence is out there, except the phone records. If Bucky arranged hookers for minors, the NCAA is the least of his worries.
My gut feeling, he did.
There is general agreement that Freeze is a sleazy liar. The kind of guy that, whenever the next little sordid fact comes out, you go, “I’m not surprised”.
He’s also a rich guy who apparently likes hookers. A lot.
But with all the people digging around for months now, many with an excellent motive to make the story bigger and more sensational, no evidence has turned up to to link a recruit to an escort. That’s kind of surprising in and of itself, given the way the world works these days. Somebody is usually eager to make some kind of claim, true or not, for a few bucks or just out of spite. But no hooker, player, high school coach, parent or Mississippi State fan has come forward with facts. That could still happen, but the chances of a legit claim grow less every day.
So it’s really not a matter of believing a word that comes out of Freeze’s mouth. It is a question of avoiding the temptation to jump to conclusions based on a person being a terrible person and a liar. We do that to politicians all the time, and it is fun to think about the scoundrels being exposed. On the other hand, if the scoundrel beats back enough baseless rumors, it makes it a lot harder for the accusers to make the real stuff stick, as we also have found out with politicians.
Agree with that 100%
I don’t really care what Ole Miss has said or not said, truthfully or not, about the situation but as someone noted earlier in the thread there have been no allegations of specific incidents when Bucky hired a hooker for a recruit . Not in the media, not in Mississippi State blogs, nowhere. In other words there ain’t even any smoke to suggest a fire. If he had I think we have heard by now
There is plenty about this in MSU forums. True? That remains to be seen.
They have been spot on everything that has transpired.
Thank you
It is difficult to believe that at least some of his assistant coaches and possibly more in the athletic department did not know what he was doing.
I think much like PIG on Freeze, all the roaches have not crawled out from under the bed yet. What has already been proven is a wide range of cheating permeated from boosters to the head coach and all points in between. Why draw the line at providing dates for top talent when it probably was so efficient for teenage admiration?
Quite frankly I’d be surprised if prostitutes and recruiting are rare in college recruiting period, but I’m a cynic. Throw in Freeze having this much contact with services, I wouldn’t place any bets that absolutely none of it was job related.
unless the law is different across the land, I am sure that what Freeze did is criminal as in solicitation of prostitution that is a middling level of misdemeanor here in Nashville. Is it different anywhere else? I remember a couple of hockey players visiting Tampa and getting arrested for calling such a service and having invited an escort employed by the Hillsborough County Sheriffs office to their hotel room. I get the moral problem and how Freeze hid his probable sex addiction by doing his stuff only on the road or Memphis as has been reliably suggested. Dude has criminal behavior if he did any more than get his jollies just by calling and fantasizing. If he acted on those calls and exchanged money for girl company then he solicited and she is then a prostitute and he has done his misdemeanor deed. Bust him and fingerprint him and his future job interviews, travel and many other daily life activities can remind him that he is a sleaze never ending. I am pretty sure that his behavior is an impulse disorder and can be so diagnosed, but is not an alibi for his behavior. Greg or one of the other psychiatrist types on board can elaborate as to whether DSM V will recognized sexual addiction officially, has not been heretofore. Freeze had a great gig for someone with his problem except that he did get recognizable and now may have so much coming out of the woodwork to nail him like the strip club owner in Starkville.
I think I don’t want to know all that went on with Petrino, but DD allusions are morbidly interesting. Any possible inclusion into T or F with Dudley? Hard to believe Mike Price saga was 2003.