re: Nutt staying at Ole Miss

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Houston Nutt remains the football coach at Ole Miss, but only after extensive conversations with chancellor Dr. Dan Jones and athletic director Pete Boone over the past 24 hours convinced him that the program was still headed in the right direction.

First off — this thing wasn’t about money at all,” said Nutt, who has a 17-8 record in two seasons with the Rebels. “But we needed to make sure we were all on the same page. They assured me that we were.”

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Nutt said he doesn’t see himself as a serial job hunter, even though his name has come up often in coaching searches over the past several years. When he was at Arkansas, Nutt was reportedly courted by Nebraska, but decided to stay with the Razorbacks.

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“I think if you do the research, you’ll find out that I never instigated these conversations with other schools,” Nutt said. “Jimmy (Sexton) (Nutt’s agent) wasn’t out there beating down doors. He didn’t even know Kansas had contacted me until I called him.

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Nutt said he did not make any demands during his conversations with Boone and Jones. Nutt has occasionally been critical of the school’s academic policies.


When UM offensive linemen Bradley Sowell and John Jerry were suspended a game for academic issues, the coach said he would have been able to handle things differently at Arkansas, but his hands were tied because of the school’s academic policies.


Nutt said no specifics were discussed, but academics would be very important part of building the program. The Rebels lose three scholarships for the upcoming recruiting class because of a low APR score, largely a by-product of the Ed Orgeron era.


“That hurts us,” Nutt said. “We’ve got to get that corrected and I know we will. We have to win here. We’re not naive enough to think we don’t have to win. This is a tough conference.”

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Nutt admitted that part of the pull of the Kansas job was that it could provide an easier path to a Bowl Championship Series game. The SEC is widely considered the toughest conference in the country from top to bottom and Nutt must compete with the likes of Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Arkansas and Mississippi State in the Western Division.

“It crosses your mind that it might be easier to get to that championship game,” Nutt said. “But I’ve been in the SEC for so long. There’s nothing like a Saturday afternoon in the SEC. No disrespect (to the Big 12), but there’s nothing like it.”

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