The desire can be overwhelming to feel like the sky is falling around Notre Dame. For starters, that’s the natural disposition of many ND fans…heck, many sports fans that I know. The news that Greg Bryant is likely to miss the first four games of the upcoming season for an unspecified “violation of team rules” seemed to come out of nowhere and be all too expected all at once. After all, as Tex noted in his piece yesterday, bad things seem to come in threes. More troubling to Notre Dame fans is the annual offseason tradition of waiting for the bad news to come out about the team, and sadly, they have not disappointed in recent memory. Whether it’s been arrests (Tommy Rees, Michael Floyd, Will Mahone), transfers (Everett Golson, Gunner Kiel, DaVonte Neal), or suspensions (Cierre Wood, the academic suspensions, Bryant), the offseason has proven to be a dangerous time. Idle hands and whatnot…
I’ve heard and read the laments of many ND fans. Why can’t the team just have a quiet offseason? Is Brian Kelly losing control of the team? There’s a lack of discipline that wouldn’t have been tolerated back in the old days. Frankly, I find it hard to disagree with any of these sentiments on their face. There was a moment where I started to question whether ND was on some track reserved for the dregs of society (and I’m sure there are some out there who will read this and be convinced it is so). With that concern in my head, I set out to discover just how prevalent this crap behavior was.
If you’re not familiar, EDSBS awards what is known as the Fulmer Cup. In essence, which program’s had the most run-ins with the law during the offseason. You can read more about it here. If you’re interested in the current standings and police blotter, well, that can be found here. Being familiar with the Fulmer Cup, I knew Notre Dame couldn’t really be that bad off, but I was still curious. I set out with the help of Inspector Google to find out how prevalent each of the holy trinity (suspensions, transfers, and arrests) was across each of the schools in the Power 5 football conferences. I further wanted to limit it and know how many schools had seen these instances just in 2015.
My research methodology was flawed and lazy. The rules pretty much went like this:
I type in “[school name] football player [transfer/suspension/arrest] 2015.”
I scroll the first and second page of search results. If there’s a matching news article for anytime during 2015, I marked it down.
I did not go beyond page 2.
Occasionally I’d have to add in a modifier like “Kentucky Wildcat” because as it turns out the whole dang state of Kentucky was getting in trouble (I’m looking at you Eastern Kentucky). This was repeated for all schools. Oh yeah…remember how I mentioned I wanted to do this for all of the Power 5 schools? Well, I made it through the SEC and the B1G and then tapped out because well….let’s just summarize:
28 total schools reviewed:
–16/28 schools had a result for player suspensions in 2015. This did not include bowl suspensions to start the year. It also did not include players that had done something so dang terrible they’d already been dismissed from their program….THIS YEAR!!!
–23/28 schools had news about player transfers. Guess what guys? Notre Dame wasn’t the only program to lose a quarterback to transfer this offseason. I know that’s startling, but it’s true.
-19/28 schools had arrests for this year. That includes a Michigan assistant coach but does not include the 4 Kentucky players who were under grand jury investigation for getting in fights with the Eastern Kentucky players. It includes multiple instances of domestic violence and assault, robbery, burglary, theft, drug dealing, possession of a firearm in connection with drug dealing, and multiple DUI’s.
–Unofficially: If I expanded the scope to about August of 2014, the rate increases to 100% for all three categories. I was stunned at the number of arrests and suspensions that occur in season. I’ve obviously not been paying enough attention to my police blotter.
There’s a discussion to be had here, but it’s not particularly about Notre Dame. I’m really not sure it’s even about the SEC, college football, or college athletics. I’d argue that some of this is the result of the proliferation of information. The Internet, social media, and the 24/7 news and sports networks mean that very few things remain a secret for very long. I am sure some (likely older) readers might believe this is just more evidence that society is eroding. You’d have a tough time convincing me that a large portion of the reported discrepancy isn’t the result of less media attention generally and different societal views on particular behaviors. But, good grief, this is a Notre Dame football blog, so no need to go down that road any further.
Some may be hoping for a solution. There are solutions out there, but I’m not sure they’re all that desirable. There is an inherent tension in trying to compete at the highest levels of college football consistently and recruit moral and ethical saints. Before I get accused of it: No, I am not suggesting that Notre Dame should or does lower their character standards just to compete. What I am saying is there’s a degree of risk absorbed when attempting to recruit from a finite number of elite athletes. The Venn diagram cross-over of “elite athlete” and “fully realized, mature adults at the age of 18” is remarkably small. Notre Dame will never be able to roster 85 Jaylon Smiths. He’s the exception, not the rule.
You may notice that my second circle of the Venn diagram was not “non criminals” but rather “fully realized, mature adults at the age of 18.” There was a reason for that. There’s a lot of unfair judgment cast upon a lot of these young men who are still trying to find their way in life. I’m frequently shocked by the anger some feel towards a 19 year old who decides a school isn’t right for him and he needs to transfer. There’s also some wiggle room for unlawful conduct that doesn’t rise to the level of non-correctible character flaw. Sometimes, even for individuals who may be rehabilitated, the punishment needs to be removal from the program. Other times, suspension or sanctions can do the trick.
Notre Dame’s job is now and will always continue to be to punish those behaviors when necessary, guide when appropriate, and first and foremost to foster an environment where suspensions, transfers, and arrests are the lonely exception rather than the norm. That players have slipped up does not mean the decision to recruit or enroll that individual was a failure. It doesn’t mean that that player was a failure. Fans need to appreciate that complete elimination of these behaviors is impossible. After all, the only infallible people in the world are Internet commenters, and, sadly for the program, these divine people lack the athletic skills necessary to play college football.
That said, it’s okay to question what’s been going on and search for answers. It’s okay to wonder out loud what might have been done differently. It’s certainly okay to continue to hope, wish, and pray for a quiet offseason. But, Notre Dame’s not alone. This is not a Notre Dame problem. It’s a problem impacting Notre Dame like many other schools. Striving to be an SEC school on the field and the antithesis of an SEC school off the field is a task that defies simple answers and hot takes.
Survivor of the Davie, O'Leary, Willingham football eras. Southern. Charming and more often than not the wittiest person at his dinner table (he eats alone quite a bit).
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Ah yes. UK: where they act like big time sec schools, but don’t win like ’em.
The issue is how top-tier programs handle the indiscretions of their young athletes.
Of course college-aged students will mess up. I did. The question remains, does ND overreact to these athlete indiscretions so as to save face and set themselves apart to prove their oft-condemned “see-we’re better than thou” attitude? I’m a ND fan, so I’m not bashing ND. Nor am I a huge Brian Kelly fan. But Kelly has, in the ebbing shadow of the “frozen five fiasco” finally called attention that our administration too often overreacts, ignoring and diminishing the difficulty of being an ND student-athlete. It’s about time someone has had the insight/courage to do so. Swarbick’s painful silence during the entire “frozen five fiasco” was perhaps the most embarrassing segment of the entire episode.
Archangel, thanks for reading and for commenting. One of the frustrating parts of being a fan of college athletics is the fact that A.D.’s and coaches are barred by law from commenting about individual players. Specifically, and for one, the federal FERPA protects the privacy of college students, such that it would be illegal for Swarbrick to come out and speak about a player. Same for Kelly. I also think there is a purposeful silence, so that the players don’t see their A.D. behind a podium talking about “standards.” That said, when the “frozen five” scandal broke, Swarbrick was pretty vocal about investigating and upholding the honor code. I wish ND had a perfect academic support system, but it may be that the classes and course offerings moved on, as it were, from the majority of the athletes and the athletics department is in the process of catching back up.
Constructive criticism for Moons: 2d paragraph. “…whether Notre Dame was on a track reserved for the dredge of society…” Methinks the phrase you sought was “dregs of society.”Makes better sense AS WELL AS being a bona fide expression. Peace.
Indeed! My midnight brain is not the best functioning. Appreciate the catch, and thank you for reading.
I did a little off the record study of this,a couple of years ago and did not even make it thru half of the division 1 schools and found that a total of 14 schools had double the bad news compared to Notre Same. Unbelievable as,I was going to write a blog on this but wanted to continue with the,rest of the schools but time was the issue for me. News with these topics are just magnified at ND, and really and truly ND does not have near the problems you see across the country. No Brian Kelly is not losing control like many other coaches out there, he is just at a school where they watch if the players stand up to pee or sit down!