The New Thug U? It's Florida

Miami long ago earned a reputation as Thug U, a tag the Hurricanes might never shake. But Sun Sentinel columnist Dave Hyde says Urban Meyer's Florida Gators are the real outlaw team in the Sunshine State these days.

In the past two seasons since Randy Shannon has become coach, only one Hurricane player has been arrested. That was freshman Robert Marve for breaking a car mirror. Amd Marve is no longer with the team, having transferred to Purdue.

Florida's arrest total is 15. Hyde writes: "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."

Hyde adds: "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."

Comments

[Joseph]

That's because Meyer disciplines his team or kicks the off the team. Such as Rickerson, who hit his girlfriend, kicked off the team. Cam Newton, who was accused of stealing a laptop, but actually unknowingly bought a stolen one from a school mate, kicked off the team. Marcus Thomas, the best DT UF has had in a decade, kicked off the team for violating team rules by leaving Gainesville.

[Matt]

And what's sad is that programs like Nebraska, who had a couple of bad years with these issues and disciplined the players accordingly in just about all cases, are thrown under the proverbial bus because they don't have enough "butts in seats" at home to warrant preferential ESPN treatment.

ESPN and their sycophants needs to DiaF, post-haste.

[Not You]

"Cam Newton, who was accused of stealing a laptop, but actually unknowingly bought a stolen one from a school mate, kicked off the team."

Cam Newton wasn't kicked off the team. He was suspended, and then he transferred to get away from all the negative attention. Which is sad, because he was a good kid and a great player who basically got screwed. But yeah, I agree, the difference here is that when FSU and UM were Thuggin', they waited for the jail sentence to be up so the player could play again. Meyer kicks them off unless he thinks it was a genuine mistake and the kid will change, after he gets both sides of the story, but before the judge rules.

[AlachuaJustice]

The judge doesn't rule on Gators - he never gets the chance. The State Attorney there seems to be a little, umm, lenient when it comes to Gators. (Or people whose business was burglarized suddenly decide it was all a misunderstanding and beg to have the charges dropped when the public gets wind - great thing the police and state attorney there can complete felony investigations in three days from time of incident or you guys would be struggling against the LSUs of the world). And you guys are flat kidding yourself if you think Meyer kicks these kids out when they have problems. If Meyer was kicking every player that got arrested off the team, you guys would be down, at least, to 70 scholarship players. He claims to discipline them, running a few extra wind sprints seems to be enough for the booster - I mean state attorney to drop felony charges, and Meyer can laughably maintain he maintains a high character program while players are running amuck and the media pretends not to see it.

[AlachuaJustice]

One other thing: let's not forget the Chris Raineys and Carl Moores, who go on record with rather substantial recruiting violations, then try to act like they simply misspoke, and magically people buy it and pretend like nothing happened. Jeremy Foley's slogan must be "Move along. Nothing to see here."