Third-year Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze met with the media on Monday following a press conference in which the Rebels were formally invited to the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.

Freeze met with reporters for just less than 10 minutes, speaking on a variety of topics including injuries, contract extensions, bowl prep and stadium renovations.

Here’s what Freeze had to say.

On injuries and players expected to miss bowl game

Yeah man, I brought you a whole list. You know, we continue to be disappointed with injuries it seems like our first three years, but our kids overcome. Tee Shepherd, Carlos Davis, Collins Moore, Denzel Nkemdiche, Laquon Treadwell, Vince Sanders tore his ACL in the State game, Taylor Polk broke his hand but will try to play, and then Aaron Morris re-tore his ACL. He’s going to have surgery on Tuesday, we’re going to go ahead and have that fixed. So we’ll be without all those guys with the exception of Taylor Polk.

On Aaron Morris injuring same ACL

Same ACL. It actually happened before [the State game]. He just wanted to finish and see how it went. It wasn’t a complete tear, there was just a little looseness in it and there is a partial tear. So we made the decision with he and his mom, obviously, to get it fixed again.

On recovery time for Morris

Typically on the second time it’s a bit longer. That’s we went on and had it scheduled because we really want to make sure he’s back for fall camp.

On whether or not he’s optimistic Morris will return for 2015

If you look at the calendar, yes. These things tend to always be iffy, so it’s kind of hard to say but I sure hope so for his sake and for our team.

On shuffling the offensive line with Morris out

Rod [Taylor] is going to move to right and Justin [Bell] will move to left.

On improvement of Rod Taylor

Improves every week. Loves to practice, loves to play, real pleased with his progress. He’s going to be a good one.

On report of Tom Allen being named defensive coordinator at South Florida

Yeah, you know, that’s been in the works for two or three weeks. I am so happy for him. I know in this world, and I’ve gotten a bunch of messages today, man I rejoice with him. He’s a brother. He’s been with me since Lambuth and now he gets an opportunity to go be a coordinator. You hate to lose good people, but man we rejoice with him that he’s getting an opportunity to advance his career. We’re thrilled for him. Willie [Taggart, USF head coach] is a friend of mine, so I’m happy that those two are joining together. I think they’ll be good.

On whether or not he anticipates more staff movement

I don’t, but you never know. It’s constant movement going on right now. We don’t anticipate any, but again, we couldn’t be happier for Tom and Tracy, and again, they’ve been with me since Lambuth. He’s like a brother so we’re thrilled for him.

On when he expects to fill LB coach position

Probably will wait. With the extended dead period now, and bowl prep going on and then the Christmas break, probably will wait. Definitely after the new year is what I would think, sometime leading up to that contact period on Jan. 15.

On whether Allen will coach the Peach Bowl with Ole Miss

You know, I hate to comment on any of that. He’s having a phone call today, I know, with the people at South Florida. I’ll know all that later. We’ve got quality people here that can obviously step in and get us through this.

On academic eligibility

So far, so good. I haven’t gotten the final results, but we don’t anticipate there being an issue. I don’t want to say on the record or definite until I say it for myself, but we feel pretty good about everyone.

On feelings after contract extension

Very relieved. Again, we said months before all of the talks started that Ross [Bjork, Ole Miss AD] was working on it. I’ll say this: I’ve never had to go to Ross in any of the years, he’s always been proactive. I appreciate so much the way he and Chancellor Jones handle things. I really never get to be in it and I like it that way. I’m honored that Ole Miss has confidence in what we’re doing here. I love what I do, I love where I do it at, I love the people I do it with. Very thrilled that we can move on from that.

On importance of getting raises for assistants

That was the only thing I asked for. Let’s just up that so we remain competitive with this conference in that regard, because I really like continuity and unless a guy gets an opportunity like a Tom Allen where you get to run your own defense or offense, you’ve got to understand those. I took those chances and I want others to get the same opportunity. But, you don’t want to lose someone just because it’s a lateral move and we’re not competitive, so that was important.

On focus of bowl preparations

We’ve had two great practices. We’re having a best of seven series with our threes, it’s been fun. It’s one-to-one right now offense and defense. That’s going to happen every day. We get to go good-on-good a good bit, about 16 plays a day because we’re so similar. Our defense is similar to TCU’s and our offense, we can make it look like theirs, also. So we’re able to get some good-on-good work, and then obviously some scout team work. But really, we’ve just gotten down to fundamentals and we’ve gotten after it pretty good trying to set a tone that we want to be in the nation’s elite. Being in this bowl is a step in the right direction. Now going and competing in it and having a chance to win it late in the game is the next step.

On stadium renovations

Oh, you know what, I learned a long time ago that I need to stay in my lane and do what I can do and do what I’m good at and the guys that are great at are Ross Bjork. I’ll go with whatever he thinks is the next step. It’s really, it’s that simple with me. I love what it looks like, I love everything we’re doing so I’m super supportive of it. But man, I probably would mess it up if I got involved in any of the schematics of it. So I have great trust in those guys and thrilled that they’re continuing to prove that they want to put resources behind this program.

On TCU offense

Dynamic. Quarterback makes them go, reminds me of Johnny Manziel when we had to play and defend him. It’s very similar to that. Their coordinator came from that system. They got great players around [TCU QB Trevone Boykin] but he’s a different animal. You have to defend him every play in both run and pass which is the difficult task.

On TCU defense

[Horned Frogs head coach Gary] Patterson’s always going to have a great defense. He has a great scheme, his kids play extremely hard. I don’t think they’re underrated because I think all of us in this world know how good they are. If you look at, ever since the Baylor game, I think they’ve set a pretty good tone of what they are defensively.