Hugh Freeze's Contract Extension at Ole Miss Is Very Well-Deserved

It's a good time to be in the agent business, and Jimmy Sexton is working his magic.

His client, Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze, agreed to a contract extension in Oxford overnight after Freeze's name emerged as a top candidate for the coaching vacancy at Florida.

Ole Miss athletics director Ross Bjork announced on Twitter that a deal is in place to keep Freeze in Oxford and followed it up with a picture of himself catching a fish—something Freeze does when the program gets a commitment from a top prospect.

Did Freeze have an offer from Florida? 

Pat Dooley of The Gainesville Sun (Florida) says the two sides never met, and Freeze never had a Florida offer. But like a good lawyer in court, you don't ask questions if you don't know the answer.

Semantics aside, Freeze's extension and raise—which will pay him more than $4 million per year, according to Parrish Alford of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal—is very well-deserved.

Mark Humphrey/Associated Press

Freeze put Ole Miss back on the map.

He inherited a program that only won one SEC game over the previous two seasons and led it to back-to-back bowls, with another almost certain this season. This year, in his third season at the helm, Ole Miss posted a 9-3 record, was ranked in the Top Five and came in at fourth in the inaugural College Football Playoff rankings.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

That served notice that the program had arrived on the national landscape, but Ole Miss had arrived on the recruiting trail long before.

Former head coach Houston Nutt ignored recruiting over his final two seasons in Oxford. The Rebels ranked 22nd in 2010 and 20th in 2011. When Freeze arrived, everything changed. After piecing together a class on the fly in 2012, Freeze made a huge splash in 2013 by landing the eighth-best class in the country. That class featured No. 1 overall player Robert Nkemdiche, 5-star wide receiver Laquon Treadwell, 5-star offensive lineman Laremy Tunsil and 5-star safety Tony Conner.

John Bazemore/Associated Press

Seemingly overnight, Ole Miss transformed from an afterthought into a destination.

Freeze deserves all the credit for that.

With that recruiting class in house, the program built momentum.

"If someone would have told me my first spring that we got here that we'd win 15 games and two bowl games, inheriting a team that hadn't won an SEC game and won only two games the previous year, I'd have been thrilled, because the teams in this league aren't getting worse," Freeze told B/R last March. "They're not going backwards."

Neither is the program.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

Freeze—an offensive-minded coach—won big this year with a defense that ranked 14th in the nation in total defense (321.2 yards per game) and ninth in yards per play (4.61). In fact, it was the one-dimensional nature of his offense that hamstrung him.

With offensive-line woes and no reliable running back to soften up opposing front sevens, the Rebels were relegated to pass to set up the run. That prevented them from winning at the highest level, but it's also the last brick that needs to be laid in Ole Miss' foundation for success.

If the first three years are any indication, Freeze knows this and can handle this.

Freeze is building a contender in Oxford, and the fact that he's the first coach to get a raise because of the Florida vacancy makes it clear his peers recognize it as well.

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a co-host of the CFB Hangover on Bleacher Report Radio (Sundays, 9-11 a.m. ET) on Sirius 93, XM 208.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats are courtesy of cfbstats.com, and all recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.