Ole Miss officials and coach Lane Kiffin apologized for since-deleted tweets sent from the official Ole Miss football account trolling former Rebels coach Hugh Freeze after the Rebels' 27–14 victory over Liberty.
"These tweets were unfortunate and not who we are in Ole Miss athletics," Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter told ESPN. "When I found out about them, they were immediately taken down. I have spoken with [Liberty athletic director] Ian McCaw to relay my sincere apology. We will work to do better in the future."
One of the tweets included an photo of Freeze coaching from his hospital bed as he recovered from surgery, which was for a possibly life-threatening staph infection that entered his bloodstream.
Freeze previously coached Ole Miss from 2012 to '16 before resigning after school officials found a "pattern of personal misconduct," which included calls to a number connected to an escort service.
Kiffin told the outlet that he did not know about the tweets until after his press postgame conference.
"I have no affiliation with the Ole Miss football Twitter site, even though it may sound strange, and I first learned about the tweets after my press conference when Keith Carter told me about them," Kiffin told ESPN. "I'm completely embarrassed that anyone would put something out there like that making it look like it was a part of Ole Miss football. It was extremely disrespectful, bush league and classless, and I apologize, even though I had nothing to do with it, to Liberty and Hugh Freeze."
When ESPN reached out to the Liberty head coach, he said he discussed the way the community welcomed him back instead of talking about "something I had no control over."
"For [wife] Jill and I, it was an answered prayer the reception we got," Freeze said, in part. "We heard zero negative things, and it was incredible to visit with friends Friday and Saturday."
Under Freeze, the NCAA conducted an investigation and found that Ole Miss committed various recruiting and academic violations that resulting in the Rebels playing their 2017 season with a self-imposed bowl ban and 15 Level I violations.
