Hugh Freeze Used Ole Miss Phone to Make at Least 12 Calls to Escort Services

Records from Hugh Freeze's university-issued cellphone during his time as Ole Miss' head coach revealed he called "at least 12 numbers that are associated with online advertisements for female escorts," according to Kyle Bonagura of ESPN.com.

The calls discovered came from a time period between April 2014 and Jan. 2017. In total, ESPN reviewed "39,000 calls dating back to December 2011" provided by Ole Miss. The university only released the phone records "related to Freeze's business use."

Freeze resigned in July after what Ole Miss chancellor Jeffrey Vitter described as "a pattern of personal misconduct inconsistent with the standards we expect from the leader of our football team."

The university reportedly first became aware that Freeze called an escort service from his university-issued phone after it was uncovered during preparations for Houston Nutt's lawsuit against Freeze and the university for wrongly accusing him of committing NCAA infractions (a suit that has since been dismissed). Nutt's lawyer reached out to Ole Miss' counsel and made them aware of the call in question.

"Once we looked at the rest of the phone records we found a pattern," athletic director Ross Bjork told ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach in July. "It was troubling."

Freeze initially said he had simply called the wrong number. The pattern uncovered in his phone records would suggest otherwise, however.