Report: Nutt settlement seeks apology, no personal compensation
A lawsuit settlement proposed by Houston Nutt would see him receive $500,000 from Ole Miss, every dollar of which would go toward funding an integrity commission for college sports in Mississippi, sources told Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports.
The reported settlement proposal wouldn't net Nutt any dollars in personal compensation.
Additionally, the ex-coach still seeks a public apology from the school, which he alleged carried out a smear campaign against him to keep Hugh Freeze's name clean amid a recruiting scandal. Nutt's attorney, Thomas Mars, told Mark Schlabach of ESPN that obtaining the apology is his client's top priority.
"The settlement proposal we presented to Ole Miss is focused on the apology Houston Nutt has consistently asked for and fully deserves," he said. "After all, there's no longer any doubt about what happened here."
Nutt, who coached the Rebels from 2008-11, filed a lawsuit against the university in July, claiming Freeze, athletic director Ross Bjork, and other athletic department officials defamed him behind the scenes.
"More than a few unbiased sports reporters have talked openly on the radio and in podcast in recent weeks about how Hugh Freeze 'lied' to the press in order to falsely portray Houston Nutt as the primary target of the NCAA's investigation," Mars said. "What's more, other journalists have come out of the woodwork since the lawsuit was filed to share with us their personal recollections of how they too were duped by Coach Freeze. If for no other reason, Ole Miss owes Houston an apology."
An amended notice of allegations handed to Ole Miss by the NCAA in February 2017 attributed 17 of 21 recruiting violations over a multi-year stretch to Freeze's tenure.
Freeze resigned July 20 after a "troubling pattern" of calls was discovered on his phone records.