The recent disciplinary actions at Florida State University involving two football players is a reason to be concerned, but surely not a reason to believe that Head Coach Jimbo has a major discipline problem.
Domestic violence is a serious issue and should be treated as such. Two, is two too many. But two out of 85 players doesn’t constitute a program that is out of control. Many of these players come from families where domestic violence is a common occurrence in the home. To ask a Head Coach to eliminate family problems that have been occurring for 18 years in a year or two is not realistic. In no way am I condoning this type of behavior, but let’s be realistic on what is expected out of a Head Coach.
I only had to control one teenage son. Can you imagine trying to control 85 teenage sons 24 hours a day that somebody else raised? My experience as a Head Coach taught me that a sudden rash of players getting in trouble ran in cycles. You can easily name several high profile programs that have recently had similar problems, Alabama, Georgia, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, just to name a few. When the NCAA college football rulemakers limit a Head Coach’s access to his players to 20 hours a week but holds them accountable for their actions 24 HOURS A DAY…something is wrong.
Years ago universities were allowed to have athletic dorms to house the whole team year round. This made checking curfew and supervising your team a lot easier. Now a college can have an athletic dorm, but it can only house 50 % of his team, while the other 50% are given rent money to live off campus. Nick Saban solved Alabama’s problem, Mark Richt solved Georgia’s, and Jimbo Fisher will solve Florida State’s problem.
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