Houston Nutt was the Ole Miss Rebels football coach from the 2008 season through the 2011 season.
Nutt, who took the job in November 2007 after serving as the head coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks, replaced former Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron.
He led the Rebels to consecutive Cotton Bowl appearances, beating Texas Tech to cap a nine-win debut season. He followed that year up with more of the same in Year 2, beating Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl to secure another nine-win season.
That’s where the good news stops on the Nutt era in Oxford.
All of the school’s victories in 2010 and 2011 were vacated as part of sanctions handed down against the university’s program in 2019 because of recruiting violations committed by the Rebels under Nutt’s watch.
Nutt’s recruiting tactics were questioned well before the victories were vacated. The Southeastern Conference had to institute a new rule that limited the amount of players to be signed in a single recruiting class to 28 after Nutt recruited 37 players (for 25 scholarships) during the 2010 signing period.
Nutt was fired after losing the Egg Bowl to Mississippi State in November 2011.
He was replaced by former Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze, who was hired away from Arkansas State at the time.
Houston Nutt’s Record at Ole Miss
Nutt was 18-26 during his four-year run as the Rebels head coach. That included back-to-back victories in the Cotton Bowl during the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
Source: Wikipedia
Photo credit: Cover image of Houston Nutt by USA Today Sports Images.
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