Sure, the e-mails are coming. I knew they would. Several a day. A couple of dozen in a week.
When a Florida State football player was arrested Tuesday for an incident involving a woman getting hit with a chair last November, a University of Miami fan wrote:
“If a Miami player did that, we’d be Thug U all over again …”
When a Florida player was arrested last week for punching a man after trying to enter the victim’s apartment, a Miami fan wondered why Urban Meyer wasn’t being questioned about his 23rd player being arrested in four years.
“And don’t tell me that winning cures all, because Miami was drilled by the media ten times as much when they won,” the e-mail said.
All true. All fair. At least as far as it goes. There’s a triple-standard being applied to the three state teams, at least if you only look at the time since Randy Shannon became coach more than a couple of years ago.
It’s most pronounced by Florida and Miami. The arrest record in that span is about the same as the score on the field between these teams: Florida 15, Miami 1. And the one for Miami was freshman Robert Marve breaking a car mirror.
In the interim, Florida players have punched women, stolen property and been involved with guns and drugs. Yet nobody on ESPN is so much as reporting this. Nobody at Sports Illustrated is saying the Florida team picture should be taken from the front and the side.
Nobody at all is suggesting the University of Florida’s championship luster should be dimmed even a little over the past four years by the arrest of 23 football players.
There’s a hard lesson in this for Miami fans, and a harder warning for Florida fans. It’s not as easy as the big, bad media picking on the Hurricanes, either. It’s something you’re told early in life: Once you lose your reputation, it’s hard to get back.
Florida State has had its issues, but its national reputation isn’t nearly as scarred as Miami’s.
Miami lost its reputation, fair and square. There can’t be any revisionist history here. This dates to 1986 when there were fights, arrests and phone-card frauds that involved 40 players.
In following years there was a Pell Grant scandal, the covering up of Warren Sapp’s drug test and a rap star allegedly offering money for big hits on opponents. Even after Butch Davis calmed the waters, there came incidents that took the national story on a different, sensational tact: The murder of two players and an ugly brawl with FIU.
Did the players’ murders, even if they were the victims, play into some national image of Miami? Sadly, yes. Was the brawl video overplayed? Sure.
But a couple of quiet years under Shannon can’t completely erase years of issues. They help explain why I hope Shannon succeeds at Miami, though.
He is trying to show that winning and behavior aren’t tied together. That’s the cliche: On-field success and bad off-field behavior have a direct relationship.
Miami provides this warning to Florida: You’re one ugly story or video moment from turning those 23 arrests under Meyer into national fodder. He better get a handle on this.
He has brought in lecturers to talk to the team. He says he’s leaned on assistant coaches.
“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t discuss all of the issues, the potential issues, that are out there,” he told The Gainesville Sun.
“We’ve had a few of them, but we’re getting a little better.”
Last week’s arrest marks the fifth Gator arrested in a year. That’s better? No one expects a perfect mark. These are college kids, after all. But the way things are going, maybe Meyer should try something different before his school’s reputation changes.
Maybe he should pick up the phone.
Maybe he should call Randy Shannon.
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Great post Chris and a pretty fair piece by Mr. Hyde. It is totally pathetic that The Hators get a free pass, but the Canes did dig this hole for themselves! God is it football season yet???
Collegefootballtalk.com ran this piece also and they've been talking about on the radio alot down here.
The difference is that Tebow "makes everything better".
That's the only thing you ever hear about coming out of UF. When Tebow leaves, and this continues, it will blow up in Meyers face.
Miami has the hurricane's the greates football team, we take the ball from goal to goal like no-one's ever seen!
allcanes,,, we love U BRO!
CAN'T WAIT FOR SEPTEMBER!!!
The top one percentile of criminals all head to Canesville. What a shock!
I've seen this on a few message boards already... The headline mentions FSU UF and UM. He doesn't get into much detail about arrests or what they were for. But he makes it known that UF has had 23 arrests, no matter what it was for, in 4 years. And Miami has only had 1 arrest.
And I can see the difference between Marve punching off a mirror and a Gator popping off rounds at a walmart or forcefully opening a gate at 5am at a tow yard to get his girlfriends car back.. The latter was just a misunderstanding. But arrests are arrests.
I think Meyer is also chasing JoPa for a record -- most players arrests.
It doesn't seem like Hyde put too much into this article. He doesn't even mention FSU and their problems past the big bold headlines.
I'm sure Hyde will be on Urban Myth's hitlist now. He'll probably sned one of his losers to this guy's office, or place a call to his editor "Do you know who I am? I am Urban The Great! How dare you write anything other than positive about my program." I can see it now. The only thing larger than the count of Gator players on the police blotter is Coach Slick Willie's ego.
Facts are facts. The Gators and Seminoles have had much more serious incidents than Miami, and it's not even close. Let's see what happens with the NCAA's academic scandal ruling next week. Will the boys actually go through with a deserved punishment of the program (not just talking football either)? Or will Bobby and his boosters sweet talk and/or try to influence the outcome? Tune in next week to see if justice prevails or not.
Gator/Nole players have been been the ones busted for gun possession, assault and battery, cheating, theft, drugs, breaking and entering, public drunkeness, etc - NOT MIAMI. These two schools have the means and cooperation of their respective medias to look the other way and sweep stories under the rug.
Why does the all-world sports juggernaut ESPN not report these incidents? Well, let's see...they just had Florida Week on College Football Live where the whole week was devoted to all things Gators - well not all things obviously. They aired their Spring Game a few weeks back. Do you think they would get any kind of access from Cryer Meyer if they ran any kind of unsavory story on his shady program? No. Would they get any kind of access from Saint Bobby, in a battle for the all time wins lead in D1 football, if they reported what has been going on with the Crimi-noles? Not on your daggum life.
It's easy to pile on a Miami program that had hit rock bottom, getting suckered into a fight with a FIU program body-slamming our kicker to start it, for God's sake. But Cane fans have come to expect the pile-ons. We just ask for equal pile-ons for far worse offenses over the past 5 years.
All Canes, I thank you for bringing these types of articles to our attention where a handful of actual journalists question patterns of wrong-doings. I know this was for the two kinds of folks reading your blogs - Cane fans, and especially Gator fans because we all know they faithfully follow all things Canes, and who are one QB hit away from losing it all. Great information as always!
-Columbus Cane
16-5. UF OWNS THE u!
16-5. UF OWNS THE u!
Great call.
Four baseball titles to zero and Florida just beat Miami in a regional for the FIRST TIME in your last eleven tries.
Miami sweeps Florida earlier in the year, but Florida beats Miami twice down the stretch and the Gators now "own" the Canes.
Stellar logic, moron.
.... FYI, the police blotter OWNS the Gators:
Gators CB Janoris Jenkins arrested, tasered over fight Gainesville attorney Huntley Johnson, who is representing Janoris Jenkins, said he believes his client did nothing wrong during the weekend skirmish and simply defended himself.
Johnson said he learned through a thorough investigation that Jenkins tried to break up a fight and only struck back when someone grabbed his rope chain and tried to "choke him."
"At that moment, he wasn’t focused on listening to the cop telling him to desist young man," Johnson said.
Johnson believes Jenkins will receive deferred prosecution and possibly find the charges dropped after what he calls a "very minor incident." The Sentinel left a message with a Gainesville Police spokesman.
Gainesville Police got forceful with Florida Gators cornerback Janoris Jenkins, a freshman All-American last year, before arresting him for his involvement in a street fight over the weekend, according to Alachua County jail records.
Police tasered Jenkins, 20, after he failed to comply with requests to stop fighting with five other people early Saturday morning, according to jail records. Jenkins was arrested on misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest without violence.
Jenkins hit another person in the head after the officer's warning at 100 S. Main Street at 2 a.m., according to jail records. The officer applied one taser cycle on Jenkins, who then stood up and ran away, according to the records. He kept running after the officer yelled for him to stop, but he was later arrested about one and a half blocks away, according to the records. Jenkins told police he was fighting to prevent the potential theft of his chain, according to records. It's possible Jenkins attended the Rue Bar, a Gainesville night spot at 104 S. Main St.
Jenkins was released Saturday on a $2,000 surety bond provided by Tyrone Johnson Bail Bonds in Gainesville. Johnson said today that a "close friend" of Jenkins gave the money.
The Sentinel has requested a comment from Florida Coach Urban Meyer.
Jenkins is the Gators' 24th arrest in the last four years, a trend the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Dave Hyde recently pointed out. Jenkins is the third Gator to be arrested in 2009, following offensive lineman Carl Johnson and walk-on Marquis Hannah. Defensive tackle Torrey Davis was arrested shortly after leaving the team in March.Jenkins, a former Pahokee standout, is one of the Southeastern Conference's best cornerbacks after becoming the second Gator ever to start opening day as a true freshman.
STAY CLASSY GATOR TRASH!!!!!
ha ha Janoris. You tool bag