Houston Nutt fired

News has rolled around that Ole Miss has fired Houston Nutt and will have a press conference at 2 to explain the decision.

He has a $6 million buyout and rumor is his agent, Jimmy Sexton, already has a job lined up for him at Colorado.

 

I've been saying all along that I thought this would be Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn's job if he wants it. I'm sure there will also be sentiment from the fanbase for Mike Leach and possibly Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart as well.

By the way, word is AD Pete Boone (who hired Nutt and also Ed Orgeron) might be gone as well.

 

LOL

 

Ole Miss is one of those places that simply will never be as good as its fan base thinks it should be. There are at least six better programs for recruits to choose within 300 miles.

 

On one hand, it's fair to question just who (or when) Mississippi thinks it is. It is not the 1950s any more.

On the other hand, it's very difficult to look at how the team has performed in 2010 and 2011 and think Nutt is the guy to turn it around.

Leach would be a really interesting choice.

 

Fair enough I guess, but there's no excuse to be 2-7 this year, 1-for-14 in the SEC the last two years and losing by 23 to Vanderbilt and 17 to the worst Kentucky team since the Bill Curry days.

 

Agreed that Ole Miss thinks it's higher on the food chain than it really is.

Still, Houston Nutt got more rope than David Cutcliffe did. The latter had one bad season and was gone, which was silly given its place in the food chain.

 

That's what happens when lack of self-awareness is at a high. Ole Miss had, not long before, played its biggest game in Oxford in four decades. That was a tease that made it seem possible to be as relevant in football as in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

 

Maybe we can turn this into the college coaching carousel thread, although Nutt being fired certainly merits it's own.

 

Would Colorado really fire Embree after one season? They should, but I doubt they would.

 

I maintain the reason Cutcliffe got fired when he did was that he'd slacked off in recruiting for a couple of years, and Ole Miss people were scared to death that Sly Croom — as a black coach in a largely black state — was going to be the pied piper and bring every good player in the state to Starkville. That's why they hired Ed Orgeron (who could recruit like hell, but couldn't do anything else).

 

Why should anyone black go near the place -- unless they have absolutely no choice?