On to the Goal

Well, the “Florida is the new Thug U” story has now been around long enough to be reduced to this: Criticism of the PR response. And when you reach that stage, it really is time to stop talking about the subject, especially since it was mostly ridiculous offseason bluster to begin with.

I respect Dr. Saturday’s opinion, and he certainly wasn’t the first to question Florida’s response. And given that part of it was hilariously lifted directly from the Scared Straight playbook — shuffling players into a ridealong program with Gainesville police — I have to admit that it was a bit overwrought. At least they didn’t decide to go in this direction:

Nah, we’ll leave that part to Tebow.

In all seriousness, I think the issue did warrant a response because, from its outset, it completely lacked context. The column that begat this meme was woefully short on detail. Among the things it missed:

• Actual number of players arrested
• Number of charges dropped
• Analysis of the severity of the crimes
• Thorough comparison to other major football programs and university populations as a whole

The initial round of follow-up attempts wasn’t much better, and things didn’t really come into focus until the Gainesville Sun and Jeremy Fowler, among others, began to confront the bloviating and “faux righteousness” (as Doc Sat put it) with, get this, actual facts. From the beginning, that was half of my objective in writing about the topic.

The other half was to stress that this is not a minor issue, and that is where my opinion departs from that of Mr. Hinton, et al.  I don’t necessarily buy the reasoning that this story was going to go away. Sure, the Gators are not the only college football program with a high arrest total, but they’re the only college football program with a high arrest total and a 2008 BCS trophy. Relax, I don’t mean that in the “THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE WIN!” vein. But if I were part of the Florida braintrust, I’d have been thinking four things:

1. Like it or not (OK, generally we “like”), we’re one of the most visible programs in America.
2. Even if it’s just for public intoxication, someone else is probably going to get arrested in the next six months.
3. The higher the number of incidents, the more likely it is that the “thug” perception becomes its own reality.
4. We better damn sure get out in front of this with some context.

Sure, it’s possible that everyone manages to stay out of trouble and the story fades into the ether. It’s also equally possible that, right at this very moment, Bob Ley is on a C-130 preparing to parachute into Gainesville with an army of cameramen and a briefcase full of spotshadowed Alachua County Court transcripts. As such, I err on the side of letting the facts see the light of day, especially when those facts are actually favorable when compared to the initial mock outrage.

So that brings us full circle, in a sense. All of these issues make the Gators look bad, at least for as long as people are talking about them. But paradoxically, we needed to talk about them to get the facts straight. As I noted from the beginning, some of these incidents are serious and some are, well, stupid. Forgive me if I don’t feign outrage over Dorian Munroe removing a boot from his car. That clarification alone was worth the bloodletting.

But now it’s time to stop. I could waste 1,000 words on whether you need thugs to win (probably) or how fair the inevitable OTL piece is going to be (not very), but it is all wasted energy barring any new developments. And just as I’ve closed every previous such post, pray those inevitable new developments aren’t of the “OH THAT IS SO MESSED UP!” variety.

I hate to come off a week’s absence with another story about lawbreakin’. I really do. But as suspected, the story isn’t going away. Thankfully, however, we now have the facts, and unlike a variety of media reports you’re about to see, we know how to use them.

First, major kudos to Jeremy Fowler of the Orlando Sentinel for succeeding where I failed and finally providing us with a complete accounting of all 24 “arrests.” It turns out the actual number of players arrested is 19, with four former Gators being responsible for multiple incidents. My list missed the following players, not counting Janoris Jenkins who was arrested subsequent to the initial publication:

• Riley Cooper: Misdemeanor obstruction for failing to get out of the way of a moving police or fire vehicle. Charges dropped.
• Louis Murphy: Misdemeanor weed possession. Charges dropped. (Totally forgot about that.)
• Jon Demps: Misdemeanor driving with a suspended license. Charges dropped. Demps was booted for undisclosed, drug-rumor-y reasons, but his arrest was minor.
• Dawayne Grace: Two incidents involving battery, disorderly conduct and the always dreadful “violation of a city ordinance.” Meyer suspended him indefinitely after the second incident and he transferred.

Without knowing more about the Dawayne Grace situation (could go either way) none of those exactly fall into the “depraved” category. The truly heinous incidents, it seems, belong to just four players: Ronnie Wilson, Jamar Hornsby, Jacques Rickerson and Avery Atkins. Does that warrant a pat on the back? Something like, “Hey, you guys only committed one fucked up crime this year, great job!” No, it does not. But it’s worth noting.

Overall, we’re left with this: 19 players racked up 24 “arrests” in four years. That’s bad. But how bad? Fowler’s Sentinel colleague Andrea Addelson has an opinion: It’s a ssuper-suhrious problem:

Let’s put these numbers into context. The arrest rate for the football team going back to Meyer’s first season in 2005 is roughly 10 percent (24 arrests out of 239 players listed on the official roster).

Compare these numbers to the general population. In 2004, the last year statistics are available, the Uniform Crime Reporting Program of the Department of Justice reported the arrest rate in the United States to be 4.7 percent (4,752.4 arrests per 100,000 residents).

But, oh, how that analysis is flawed. First, the actual Gators arrest rate is just shy of 8 percent (19 of 239 players), but we’ll give that one a pass since everyone was initially confused about this.

UPDATE: With apologies to Adelson, I went overboard on that point. The overall arrest rate for males 15-24 obviously is likely to include many individuals who have been arrested multiple times. Thus, 24 arrests from 239 individuals is the most fair number to use here. Mea culpa. The overall point still holds, however.

Second, complete crime statistics are available for a year as recent as 2007. Really, it’s right there on the FBI Web site, which is the first result in a Google search for “Uniform Crime Reporting.”

But most importantly, she uses the overall arrest rate in her analysis, which would be fine if we were dealing with a population sample that was representative of the overall demographic makeup of the United States. We’re not. We’re dealing with individuals who are, relatively speaking, far more likely to commit crimes: Young males. As such, we shouldn’t look at a number (the overall rate) that incorporates grandmothers and infants.

It’s hard to find data for the age range typical of college football teams, namely 18-22. But we can get close by comparing U.S. Census estimates and crime data for males aged 15-24. In July of 2007, there were an estimated 21, 800, 163 15-24-year-old males living in the U.S. That’s about 7.23 percent of the total population.

Of the 14-plus million arrests made in 2007, more than 3.2 million involved males aged 15-24. That tells us three things:

1. Young males make up 7.23 percent of the nation but are responsible for 22.8 percent of its crimes.
2. The arrest rate for those young males is actually 14.8 percent.
3. Young males are stupid.

So Florida players get arrested at a LOWER rate than their peers, which isn’t surprising considering the discipline and structure inherent to almost any football program. In general, sports teams and their coaches tend to keep otherwise wayward souls on a straight path. I don’t think the Florida Gators and Urban Meyer are any exception.

The flip side of this, of course, is that Meyer has control over whom he lets into the program — this isn’t a neighborhood Boys & Girls Club team. On at least a few instances, he apparently chose poorly. The fact that some of his players occasionally smoke weed or get into bar fights should be neither surprising nor a cause for alarm. But several incidents involving domestic battery and AK-47s in a short amount of time should and will raise red flags.

We could take that in a million different directions, but I’ll be more succinct: There’s absolutely cause for some introspection here. But when Outside The Lines, Yahoo Sports or whoever inevitably comes knocking, don’t let them tell you that Florida is some kind of a haven for criminals relative to the rest of society. The facts simply don’t support that conclusion.

UPDATE: That didn’t take long. Huntley Johnson is on the scene, and you’re not going to believe this, but he says Jenkins did nothing wrong and was in fact breaking up the fight. Fowler has the deets. In reality, it’s good to hear that a vigorous defense is in the works, but as Johnson alluded to, this still smells like a deferred prosecution, which still could mean a whole lot of Markihe Anderson against Charleston Southern.

_ _ _

Well crap. The Gators’ much-discussed arrest tally has climbed another notch this weekend after starting cornerback Janoris Jenkins was tased and charged with two misdemeanors.

Police received a report of a fight in the 100 block of South Main Street and arrived at the location at about 2 a.m., Saturday to find Jenkins fighting with about five other people. An officer ordered the group to stop fighting but no one listened to the commands, the report stated.

The officer then drew out a Taser and told the group stop. At that point, Jenkins hit another person in the head, police reported. The officer then used the Taser on Jenkins.

Amazingly to anyone who’s ever watched a taser video, Jenkins was allegedly able to shake off the shock, get up and run a block and a half before finally being apprehended. Jenkins said he was fighting because he believed someone, most likely a hater, may have been trying to take his chain.

There’s no way to spin this as a non-story, since it sounds like most of this happened while the cops were actually there. No combination of Bull Gators and Alachua County court officials can make that simply disappear. Assuming Jenkins has no prior record, however, the story indicates that pre-trial deferment may be likely, which would certainly be good news for Jenkins. In any event, this incident would seem to fall somewhere  in “boys being boys” territory in the scale I outlined on Friday, which is, again, not meant to excuse or condone the behavior. But by itself it probably isn’t the end of the world, as long as it’s not part of a larger pattern of behavior.

For the Gators, though, this absolutely sucks. The timing and negative PR implications are bad enough, and there are on-field implications as well. Jenkins was phenomenal as a true freshman, and I felt at times that he was the best player in the Gator secondary. They need him on the field, but my guess is that this will draw a suspension for the Charleston Southern game, and possibly the game after that against Troy. If all stays quiet, however, that will probably be the end of it. The problem is, the next time someone gets caught doing something stupid, the total will be just that much higher.

(HT: EDSBS)

Back in the age of boyish innocence and lucious, golden locks.

When I posted my wistful longing for August on Friday, I sort of neglected to remember this whole “NFL Draft” thing and its propensity for generating interesting news and quotes, all of which we’ll get to in a few moments.

But first, did ESPN’s draft-day coverage leave you with the metaphorical feeling that you just got repeatedly struck in the head by a blunt object? If so, just be glad you weren’t literally receiving this treatment at the hands of former Gator tight end and not-for-much longer USF Bull Trent Pupello.

Pupello allegedly spent the wee hours of a recent Friday getting his pistol-whip on in a Tampa parking lot. The mainstream article is very much worth reading, but we’ll summarize thusly:

During a fight at 2:50 a.m., Pupello ran to his 2005 Denali, grabbed a handgun, ran back to the fight and pistol-whipped three individuals, causing each injury, the most serious of which was a fractured orbital socket. Good times. Allegedly.

That a fight occurred at such a classy establishment as The Hut Channelside really should come as no surprise. I’ve never set foot in this bar but based on the photos I guarantee you it’s a place where guys with bad tattoos flex their pecs, drink Crown and Cokes and say things like, “I a’int lookin’ to fight, but sometimes shit just needs to happen. You gotta do what you gotta do.” But as Orson pointed out, there’s just something jarring about the concept of pistol-whipping. If Pupello had allegedly delivered a brutal ass-whooping with his fists, this is probably a minor item. Instead, it’s 17 big points in the Fulmer Cup.

Does this reflect badly on the Gators? Eh, not really. Pupello hadn’t been on the team for about 18 months, so unless you’re hellbent on poking a few more holes in Urban’s “top one-percent of one-percent” promise, there’s really not much here. (And, orange and blue glasses off for a moment, if you ever bought into that whole line of thinking… I don’t know what to tell you.)

Unfortunately, however, an actual member of the Florida football team (well, at the time anyway) did manage to see the inside of the Alachua County Jail this weekend. Walk-on running back Marquis Hannah was charged with a second-degree felony and is “not part of the team until this issue is resolved.” Which, barring a total reversal, means you can close the books on the Marquis Hannah era.

Suffice it to say that I would really, really like to not have to check the “Law & Order” category again this offseason. Pretty please?

Carl Johnson, a junior expected to be a critical piece of the Gators’ offensive line in 2009, will not face criminal charges stemming from accusations that he date raped his former girlfriend.

Details can be found here and here and pretty much anywhere else that comes up on a Google News search for “Carl Johnson.” I have a journalism degree, but explaining every facet of this story with any degree of accuracy would be an excruciating exercise in patience and probably equally as boring for you to read. Basically, the upshot of it all is as follows:

- The misdemeanor criminal charge for violating the restraining order has been dropped due to “insufficient evidence” and is unlikely to return.

- The underlying sexual battery complaint against Johnson has been withdrawn (on February 19, in fact) by his ex-girlfriend, though she did reserve the right to revisit the complaint.

- Johnson is still barred from contact with the woman pending the outcome of a April 7 hearing which could be “extended, canceled or remain intact.”

- Most importantly from a football perspective, Johnson will probably be back on the field when practices begin this spring. To my knowledge, nothing official has been said on the topic but not much was said to begin with, either. Jeremy Fowler provides his thoughts and I concur with his premise that Johnson will be back.

With that said, unless new pertinent information comes out on this topic, I probably won’t be bring it up too much in the future. In instances of alleged sexual assault, truth is almost always extremely difficult to ascertain, even for those closest to the situations. Despite what we think we as outsiders think we may “know” about a situation, the reality is we probably don’t. About anything I could say from this point on would land me in hot water with someone, somewhere, but trust me when I say I’m not advocating for a particular side, either in this case or any larger hot-button debate.

This is a football blog, and as such, Carl Johnson will be henceforth known as “Carl Johnson, football player,” not “Carl Johnson, accused date rapist” or anything else to that end. Of course, there’s still the scheduled April 7 injunction hearing, and I’m sure the story will be unavoidable if and when he is cleared by the athletic department or returns to the field. But lacking any more substance, I think there isn’t much more to be said.

I’m back from vacation and this blog is back from hiatus. Hopefully such outages will be rare in the future. I’ll still be traveling a bunch in the coming months, but I’m working on finally getting my laptop fixed to a point where I feel comfortable lugging it on airplanes. Take that, wedding season. OK, enough with the excuses. On to the (just barely) morning links.

*Gasp!* Urban Meyer says naughty words!

Urban Meyer was in Pennsylvania for a Nike Coach of the Year Clinic and — shocking absolutely no one who has ever spent more than five minutes around a football coach — dropped a bunch of s-bombs in his nearly two-hour speech that touched on “football and family.” The quotes included in the article were typical Meyer-speak — calculated and intelligent with hints of arrogance abundant confidence, but devoid of anything that could evoke controversy. (In other words, decidedly un-Spurrier.)

However, a few of Meyer’s comments, by inference, are relevant to the Carl Johnson situation:

During his session with the coaches, Meyer talked a lot about families.

His core values for the program are: 1. Honesty. 2. Always show women respect. 3. No drugs. 4. No stealing. 5. No weapons.

He said that if he hears of one of his players hitting a woman, even if it’s in self-defense, the player is gone from the team. Period.

In fact, even if he sees someone not opening a door for a lady, “I’ll jump on a kid’s (bleep). That’s the way I was raised.”

That’s not surprising given how quickly Jacques Rickerson was dismissed following allegations that he battered his girlfriend. I’ll reiterate that it’s too early to cast any judgment vis-a-vis Johnson, but speaking in general terms, it’s refreshing to hear such a strong, unequivocal stance from a truly bigtime football coach on this matter.

Speaking of law-breakin’ ex-Gators

Jamar Hornsby is spreading the love in Mississippi, if by love you mean alleged aggravated assault and petit larceny. Yes, yes, innocent until proven guilty, reserve judgment. Total non-sequitor, but did you know this guy already pleaded no contest to unauthorized use of a credit card? Of a dead girl? Who died in an accident with one of his teammates? Who was also the girlfriend of a different teammate? Good times.

UPDATE: This sounds like it may be ugly. Chris Low, quoting David Brandt of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, (though interestingly not linking to this information) comes in with the following:

According to the arrest report, the complaint filed said Hornsby used brass knuckles while hitting another guy repeatedly in the head area, causing a fractured nose, busted lips, swollen jaw and other cuts.

The altercation started after Hornsby was involved in a minor traffic accident with another car in a drive-thru at McDonald’s around 2:15 that morning, according to police.

Houston Nutt is investigating (the O.J./real killers joke writes itself on that one), so if the allegations are true, we’ll see if “dolling out a brass-knuckle ass whooping in a McDonald’s drivethrough” is any less palpable to Ole Miss than “stealing a teammate’s dead girlfriend’s credit card.”

Meyer might be tight-lipped, but…

… you can bet that Lane Kiffin’s capricious February showboating will be on the mind of every Gator come September. Just in case you needed visual evidence, Gatortailgating.com obliges, with this photo from the Heavener Football Complex at UF:

Photo via Gatortailgating.com

Oh it’s on…

Bob Tebow is not afraid of you

Tim Tebow has arrived in the Philippines for a mission trip. The Philippines can be a volatile place, which is probably why missionaries want to go there in the first place. But Jeremy Fowler interviewed Tim’s dad, Bob Tebow, and the resulting quote is, well, straight gangsta:

“What are you going to do? Shoot me,” Bob Tebow said. “Great. That’s what I want. Best thing that could ever happen to me.”

In all seriousness, here’s hoping everyone stays safe and the Tebows can keep up the do-goodin’.

According to multiple published reports, offensive lineman Carl Johnson’s hearing has been delayed until April 7 at the request of the petitioner. For those calendar enthusiasts out there, that’s smack in the middle of spring practice, which begins March 25 and ends with the Orange and Blue game on April 18. So far we’ve heard nothing regarding Johnson’s status with the team, but spring ball is an important time for an aspiring starter, especially one transitioning back to tackle from guard. With that in mind, the longer this gets stretched out, the worse the on-field ramifications get.