HOOVER, Ala. -- Hugh Freeze is happily at home in Mississippi.
He was born, raised and educated in the state and has spent most of his 44 years living either in Mississippi or within a 30-minute drive of it.
Freeze couldn't be happier if he won the lottery, and he should feel as if he did. He definitely was kissed by lady luck three times on his journey to Oxford, where he was born.
Coaching the Rebels is a lifelong dream come true. Whether he was coaching high school football at Briarcrest, a private Christian high school in Memphis, or girls basketball, he always knew what he wanted.
He is not an overnight success. He has paid his dues and, yes, he had three great strokes of luck.
His first four-leaf clover was when Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy enrolled Michael Oher in Briarcrest. It has been well documented how the Tuohys took in the homeless young man who was large and athletic. It was dramatic enough of a story that it was made into the movie The Blind Side.
Freeze ended up at Ole Miss after Oher committed to the Rebels, but it was an administrative job and Freeze wanted to be on the field.
It was at Ole Miss where he caught his second break. He interviewed with Coach Houston Nutt to be offensive coordinator for the Rebels but didn't get the job.
So he went to Lambuth College for two years, then was hired by Steve Roberts at Arkansas State to liven up the Red Wolves offense. Near the end of his first season he showed up to speak to the Little Rock Touchdown Club as a surprise replacement for Roberts.
Almost before Freeze made it back to Jonesboro, Roberts was out and Freeze was in as ASU's coach.
Lady luck was about to smile on him again. Freeze talked to John Thompson about ASU's defensive coordinator job and Thompson recommended Dave Wommack, an unheralded defensive genius.
The defense improved drastically and the Red Wolves moved up and down the field on offense and ended up with a 10-2 record and in the GoDaddy Bowl, which led to Freeze replacing Nutt as the head coach at Ole Miss.
He has gone 15-11 overall in his first two years, 6-10 in SEC play, but his past two recruiting classes have ranked No. 7 and No. 19 in the country. With that comes expectations, and the Rebels are being talked about as the dark horse of the conference going into this season.
Some believe it is time to cash in on those top recruits and make some noise, to wrestle some of the dominance away from Alabama, LSU and Auburn.
When asked about those expectations, Freeze said: "To be candid, the journey has been faster than I thought it would. I had hoped we'd be in a bowl by the third season."
That isn't exactly the fire-and-brimstone response the media expected, but to be honest, Freeze sounded more like he was delivering a eulogy than a sermon on mounting a charge against the top-tier teams in the SEC, especially when you get Alabama and Auburn at home.
He may have lacked the passion and enthusiasm that has become part of his persona, but it may have been an attempt to try and take some of the pressure off before a drop of sweat has been spilled in the first practice. Get it off the kids as well as him and his staff.
Or maybe he is proceeding with some degree of caution. Like Nutt, he's won bowl games each of his first two seasons, but obviously that doesn't guarantee job security.
The truth is, you have to have luck to win the SEC.
Freeze may have had some luck getting to where he is, but he needs more to challenge the biggest boys on the block.
Sports on 07/18/2014