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The University of Mississippi has hired DJ Durkin as an assistant football coach, ESPN reported. Durkin was head football coach at the University of Maryland, College Park, until he was fired in 2018 after two investigations by the university's governing board revealed that the university was at fault for the death of Jordan McNair, a red-shirt freshman football player, due to heatstroke. The investigations found widespread abuse of players by the Maryland coaching staff.
Keith Carter, athletics director at Ole Miss, said the university had conducted a thorough background check on Durkin.
“We received consistently strong feedback about Coach Durkin’s strong character and work ethic and his positive impact on the communities and institutions where he was previously employed,” Carter said in a written statement.
Mississippi's former head football coach, Hugh Freeze, resigned in 2017 over allegations that he used a university mobile phone to call escort services. Liberty University in 2018 hired Freeze as its head football coach.
