Hugh Freeze resigns from Ole Miss after reported 'misdial' to escort service

Hugh Freeze's time at Ole Miss has come to an end.

The school announced Thursday that Freeze has resigned effective immediately, and that co-offensive coordinator Matt Luke will serve as interim head coach. Luke has spent the last five seasons on Freeze's staff.

Freeze's departure comes after "explosive new information" reportedly put his job in immediate jeopardy, according to Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports, with Forde later reporting that the university found "at least one call" from the coach's school-issued cell phone to an escort service.

The call was reportedly discovered by Thomas Mars, the attorney of former Rebels head coach Houston Nutt who recently filed a lawsuit against the university for breach of contract. Mars sent an email to Lee Tyner, the university's general counsel, and made reference to a "phone call Coach Freeze made that would be highly embarrassing for all of you and extremely difficult to explain."

"I've got no idea, to be honest," Freeze told Yahoo Sports. "I was in an 813 area code and that was a 313 number, I think that might have been a misdial. I don't think there was even a conversation. There's nothing to it."

Freeze added that he had been given the opportunity to redact numbers from his phone logs after Mars made a freedom of information request related to the lawsuit, and that he would have redacted the number if there was anything to hide.

"If I was trying to hide something, I would have," Freeze said. "That call shows up nowhere else on my records. There is no story to that one."