Houston Nutt’s lawsuit against the Ole Miss Rebels continues to make headlines, and the latest news doesn’t look good for the university.

When Nutt was fired by Ole Miss back in 2011, part of his separation agreement stipulated that several key members of the university and its athletics foundation wouldn’t harm Nutt’s reputation, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.

The exact language of the contract can be seen below:

“Outside of any obligation, legal or otherwise, to reveal the terms of this Agreement to third parties, the University agrees not to release or disclose information related to this agreement,” the clause reads. “The University further agrees to direct members of the control groups for the Foundation and for UM not to make any statement relative to Nutt’s tenure as an employee that may damage or harm Nutt’s reputation as a football coach.”

The issue at the center of Nutt’s lawsuit is whether or not new administrators — such as current AD Ross Bjork, for example — are bound to that clause. Most of the “control groups” have changed since 2011, which Ole Miss argues absolves them in the defamation case.

However, Nutt’s attorney, Thomas Mars, scoffed at such a notion, telling USA TODAY that he doesn’t believe the university’s argument will hold up in court:

“The cardinal rule in any contract interpretation case is what was the intent of the parties?” Mars said. “That’s the judge’s job is to determine the intent of the parties and I don’t think any lawyer would look at the language and say that was the intent of the parties and the word for word meaning couldn’t possibly have been the intent of the parties. To lay people that may not make a lot of sense, but that’s the way things work in the legal world.

“It’s a universal rule, when there are two possible interpretations of a contract that are reasonable, the court has to interpret the contract in the manner that is most favorable to the party who didn’t draft the contract. The law requires the contract to be construed against the party who drafted it and the theory behind it is if you’re drafting it you’re in the best position to make clear what you wanted and if you didn’t make it clear, the court is going to construe it against you because you failed to make it clear which is a pretty important contract construction rule in this case.”

Obviously, nothing will be settled until this case is heard by a judge. However, there is sure to be plenty of snipping between the two sides as the lawsuit continues to dominate headlines.