Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/2/2010 at 12:19pm

Clay Travis was easy on Ole Miss Coach Houston Nutt compared with this dissection of the Little Rock native by Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel for his taking on dismissed Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli.

Mandel lumps Nutt among the "dirty" coaches of college football.

College football fans love to toss around the word "dirty." Pete Carroll was "dirty," they'll tell you, because one of his former stars took a bunch of money. Urban Meyer must be "dirty" because so many of his players get arrested. Lane Kiffin is presumably "dirty" because ... well, duh.

The definition of "dirty" seems to vary based on one's affiliation, but surely we can all agree on at least one designation: A dirty coach is willing to eschew his integrity if doing so might pay off in a couple more W's. He's not so much a winner as a survivalist. He's not even necessarily a rule-breaker because he creates his own loopholes.

Which is why Ole Miss' Houston Nutt -- more so than any of the aforementioned names -- is a certifiably dirty coach.

Nutt's controversial decision to add trouble-plagued Oregon exile Jeremiah Masoli to his roster on the eve of preseason camp is so transparently pathetic in its desperation you wonder how he can make it with a straight face. And yet we should hardly be surprised.

This is, after all, the same man who hired a high school coach he didn't want just to keep a quarterback recruit he wound up losing anyway; turned the practice of oversigning into such a farce that the SEC had to make up a rule just to curb him; and, just last year, welcomed another high-profile castoff with a checkered past only to watch him run afoul of the law again before playing a down with the Rebels.

The so-called "Right Reverend" has voluntarily gone down the wrong path again.

Masoli visited Ole Miss late last week and has enrolled. He said he is joining the Rebels as a walk-on.

To recap: Oregon Coach Chip Kelly booted the star senior-to-be quarterback after he'd had a few recent run-ins with the law. Because Masoli had already obtained his undergraduate degree from Oregon with eligibility remaining, by NCAA rule he was able to transfer to another D-I program with immediate eligibility of said school offered a graduate program not offered at his previous school.

Masoli has said he would do post-graduate work in Parks and Recreation Management.

Here's the bottom line: Image aside (as we also pointed out in a blog post Friday), Houston Nutt was hired by Ole Miss to win football games. He and everybody else around Ole Miss know, whether they are concerned about the school's image with enrolling Masoli after his problems at Oregon, that the Rebels need a quarterback - especially one experienced enough and talented enough to have led Oregon to the Rose Bowl last year and who is out there this summer for the taking.

Until the hypocrisy of "win at all cost" in college football stops, then it's hard to blame any coach for taking whatever risks (within the NCAA rules and regs) he must to win games and keep his job.

Also, with all the national media attention surrounding this story (and certain to continue through the season), Masoli has a chance to prove he's not the bad apple that he appeared to be when Oregon sent him packing. He has an opportunity, with his senior season upcoming, to do just that.

He may be termed "dirty" now by the Mandels of the media world, but imagine all the "good guy, good mentor" stories sure to be written during the holidays if Houston Nutt rides Masoli's playmaking ability to another bowl berth while Masoli comes away with his own image rehabilitated. For those who were writing off Ole Miss, consider that the Tyrone Nix-coached defense will be good again and the stable of running backs on hand (granted, there is no Dexter McCluster) will allow Nutt to do what he likes to do most: run the football to set up play-action passing. A run-pass threat like Masoli will be difficult to defend.

Nutt's biggest task will be explaining to current Ole Miss players why he is adding a player to the roster who did things at Oregon that, if the Rebels did likewise, would get them kicked out of their program. Most probably won't care. The ones Nutt has sent packing recently might, but they're gone and don't matter anymore.

Mandel, though, pulls no punches as he recounts Nutt's coaching past, at Arkansas and now with Ole Miss. And, he adds this gem that will no doubt bring a smile to the so-called "haters":

"I spent a great deal of time with [Masoli]," Nutt told SI.com's Andy Staples on Sunday. "I really feel that I can help him and he can help us."

Indeed, what better place to send a wayward quarterback than to the coach who helped turn Jevan Snead into an undrafted free agent.

Tagged: Jeremiah Masoli, Southeastern Conference, Sports Illustrated, Ole Miss Rebels, Stewart Mandel, Houston Nutt