SEC Media Days 2017: Highlights, Comments and Twitter Reaction from Thursday

Controversy hung over the proceedings on the final day of SEC media days as Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze found himself in the spotlight due to the pending lawsuit from former coach Houston Nutt against the university.

Nutt is suing Ole Miss for "breach of contract via defamation of character," per Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports, and Nutt has claimed Freeze lied to incoming recruits and told them the alleged violations from the NCAA's recent investigations into the program stemmed from Nutt's time as head coach.

Nutt was not named in either of the Notice of Allegations brought forward by the NCAA in 2016 or 2017, however.

On Thursday, Freeze sidestepped the topic. 

"I would love to share my opinions on it, but it's a legal case and I just can't comment on it," he said to reporters. "I'm not at liberty to do that." 

Freeze didn't think the timing of the lawsuit was a coincidence, however. 

"It seems a bit ironic that the timing was what it was, but it is what it is," he noted. 

Indeed, the timing of the lawsuit left Freeze to once again address off-field concerns: 

"I keep waiting for the media day I can come here and we can just talk about our players and talk about the expectation of the season. For whatever reason, the journey we've been on, some our fault, has continued for a long time. I think this will be my sixth media day and if my memory serves me right, this will be the fifth time we're talking about something other than our team. So I will be very excited to get to that day."

Per Forde, the NCAA has accused Ole Miss of 21 different violations in total, 17 of which allegedly occurred during Freeze's tenure at the school. Freeze addressed that situation as well:

"We have taken responsibility for the things we've done all along. ... We're talking double-digit scholarships, a bowl ban, millions of dollars lost, severe recruiting restrictions. We're at the stage we feel like we've taken responsibility. Now it's time for us to get our day before the Committee on Infractions and have our fair outcome. Then be able to move forward."

He also tried to avoid the topic during his press conference, going on a long opening statement that Barrett Sallee of CBS Sports and Andy Staples of SI.com humorously described in the same way:

Adam Kramer of Bleacher Report was on the same page:

The rest of the proceedings were a bit lighter. South Carolina coach Will Muschamp, for instance, had one of the lines of the media days, per Scott Rabalais of the Advocate:

He also took a playful jab at Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi. 

"You don't have to identify yourself," Muschamp said when Bianchi began to ask him a question, according to Ben Breiner of The State, laughing as he said it. "They could use your voice to torture prisoners of war. I was waiting for a year to say that."

He was also honest when pressed on how the divisions stack up with one another in the SEC, per Sallee:

Auburn coach Gus Malzahn addressed his team's principal rival, Alabama: 

"Well, I mean, obviously they're on the top. I think they won it the last three years. They're No. 1 recruiting class in the country every year, and they're playing a high level.

"What I do like about this [Auburn] team is they have high expectations. Their goal is to win the SEC championship. And to do that, you've got to beat Alabama. And the last two times we beat them, we won the league and we played for the national championship, winning one of those and coming close to a second time."

Malzahn also compared his current team to the 2013 squad that reached the BCS title game:

"Well, really the biggest similarities I see from that team, this team, is how hungry they are. And in that 2013 team, you know, they went through a storm the year before. They were embarrassed. They wanted to redeem themselves. And they had that edge to them that just brought everybody together and just do that little extra more that it takes, and they were an extremely close team.

"This team, we got more starters back than we've had in the last 12 years. We were close. We were close. Like I said, we were playing as good a football I felt like as anybody for six games. We had some impact player injuries. It is what it is.

"We weren't happy the way we finished. And so those guys had that chip on their shoulder of rebounding. We got to redeem ourselves. You know, from a coach's standpoint, that's what you want. And when you got a chance to have one of those special teams, they have that characteristic, and so that's the reason I brought that up."

Expectations are clearly high in Auburn. While catching Alabama will be a tall task, little is guaranteed in the always competitive SEC.