Getty Image / Ed Zurga
News broke on Sunday evening that Matt Luke was fired as Ole Miss’ head football coach. The Mississippi native was named interim head coach after the dismissal of Hugh Freeze at the start of the 2017 season and in his three years at the helm, he posted a 15-21 record after going 4-8 this season.
According to USA Today, players were told the news during a meeting by newly appointed athletic directors Keith Carter and a majority of the players were not happy as a number of the players even stormed out of the meeting.
Carter’s address didn’t resonate with every player. A handful of players stormed out of Carter’s meeting early.
Some were seniors who didn’t have eligibility remaining, such as Myles Hartsfield and Willie Hibbler. But others were major contributors with eligibility remaining, such as running back Jerrion Ealy and defensive end Tariqious Tisdale.
The frustrations didn’t end there. Junior offensive lineman Chandler Tuitt said ‘half the team’ is thinking about leaving if the entire coaching staff is going to be let go and that the players ‘don’t care about the fans that much.’ At this time there is no news on what may happen with the rest of the staff.
After the meeting concluded, junior offensive lineman Chandler Tuitt said “half the team” is talking about leaving. Tuitt said if the entire coaching staff is dismissed along with Luke, he doesn’t think many players will stay with the team.
Carter told the players the decision was for the program.
“But you realize, there’s no program without players,” Tuitt said. “You’re basing stuff off the fans. But we don’t care about the fans that much. I’m going to be honest. We’re here for the coach. We love football. If you don’t want to support us, that’s just your fault.”
It’s never an easy situation when a coach is let go. Not for the players, not for the fans nor the university, but this situation feels a bit different.
As someone that has watched every Ole Miss football game since birth, it was clear that these players loved Luke as their head coach. There’s no question how much he, a former player himself at Ole Miss, loves the university; he even called it his ‘dream job’ when he was named the head coach of the program.
He’s definitely a players head coach, but that doesn’t always resonate with fans of a program, especially one fresh off of brutal NCAA sanctions that happen to play in the toughest division in all of college football.
The job Luke did in 2017 when the NCAA sanctions were handed out, taking the team to 6-6, was remarkable but at the end of the day, going 15-21 in three years and losing the Egg Bowl two straight seasons are facts that at the very least put you on a very, very warm seat in Oxford. And yes, it also puts a shadow over strong recruiting classes and how young the football team may have been this season.
Luke went 6-18 in the SEC in his three seasons, beat just one ranked opponent, lost to Vanderbilt once and the only two teams in the SEC West he beat in three seasons was Arkansas and Mississippi State.
Whether or not ‘half the team’ really will enter the transfer portal or if it was just young adults being emotional in the moment, we’ll just have to wait and see, but this entire situation is unique down in Oxford.
Unless Ole Miss already has a hire in the works, which better be an exciting one, or they bring in Mike Norvell from Memphis things may get uglier at Ole Miss before they get any prettier.