Todd McShay Has a Point: Hugh Freeze Stood By Laremy Tunsil All Night, Then Tunsil Sold Out the Coaching Staff

It isn’t often that a college football program becomes the story on the night of the NFL draft, but the Ole Miss Rebels football program is reeling today in the wake of the Laremy Tunsil cyber attack. The offensive lineman expected to go in the Top 5 of the draft fell all the way to 13 after someone hacked his twitter minutes before the draft and released a video of Tunsil taking a bong hit wearing a gas mask.

After Tunsil was selected by the Miami Dolphins, someone hacked his instagram page and that’s when it got really bad for Ole Miss – text messages were posted that showed Tunsil asked an assistant AD for rent money and then more money to pay his mom’s bills.

[Aside: Does this happen at other high profile programs? Almost certainly, yes. But it usually isn’t revealed like this. And Tunsil doesn’t have to talk to the NCAA when they come calling, so nothing may happen to the school. Yes, the system is badly broken. Tunsil shouldn’t have to grovel for a few hundred dollars when, as a high profile recruit, he helped bring glory to the football team as an All-American.]

Then, in a bizarre press conference, Tunsil admitted to taking benefits, and as the follow-up questions came, his agent’s assistant jumped in and shut down the interview.

A wild night indeed.

Later, on ESPN, Todd McShay said this to Scott Van Pelt :

"“Where’s his agent? He shouldn’t be fielding questions like this … You can’t have a worse night than Ole Miss had … this is a real bad look for Ole Miss … Hugh Freeze is the guy that is standing there as [Tunsil is] going through this ordeal, he’s the one standing by my side and protecting me … the one thing Tunsil did today that was his fault, he should never have done this answering those questions, and then go sell out the coaching staff and Ole Miss … he’s going to have to mature real quickly or this league is going to eat him up.”"

For these comments, McShay is getting beaten up online (and from ESPN radio host Dan LeBatard), which is predictable. But McShay’s 100% right – his coach, Hugh Freeze, stood by him all night. When cameras cut to a sweating and sad Tunsil during his free-fall, there was Freeze. Then, later, Freeze gave an interview about it, praising Tunsil!

And then, 30 minutes later, there’s Tunsil tossing the program under the bus, admitting to accepting benefits. Surely he was rattled by the happenings of the evening, and he’s only 21, so that’s perfectly understandable. This is where his agent, Jimmy Sexton, should have been by his side, helping to shield his client from questions he simply wasn’t ready for.

I don’t think McShay is hammering the kid – but I do think he’s right: Tunsil will have to mature very quickly. He needs to be ready for gas masks in the stands, and his teammates in Miami (a team with its fair share of off-the-field disasters in recent years) and certainly opponents who are going to mock his hacked social media accounts relentlessly.

I actually think Tunsil at 13 is a gift to Miami, and frankly I wish the Jets had been able to snag him at 20.