"You try to get guys to make good decisions, but they are college kids.?

[TaleofTwoDogs]

CDM talking about spring break.

Coach Mullen believes that boys will be boys and kids will have fun. But, are these guys just kids? I think this is probably true of most freshmen (first time away from momma and ready to spread their wings) Even sophomores I can understand, but juniors and seniors - hard to buy. I certainly didn't consider myself a kid when I was an upperclassman and definitely scaled back the party life in favor of studies and requirements of my field of study.

Not making a big deal of this but was just wondering when does a kid become a man? Has today's culture of openness made the 21 age standard obsolete as kids are exposed to a tremendous amount of information both good and bad. More importantly, is it fair to hold our SEC student athletes to a higher standard than the other students?

[smootness]

Well, it was a freshman and a sophomore, so...

The answer is that you hold them accountable for their actions, you just understand that with 85 college students (not counting walk-ones even), things will happen every once in a while.

[Todd4State]

Even grown ups, adults, whatever you want to call them- make mistakes and use poor judgment sometimes. Watch COPS or read the newspaper if you don't believe me.

Bear is the only incident that really upsets me. Simply because that one was totally avoidable and he put himself in a bad spot.

Dak/Damien/Brown- that was a situation to me where they didn't do anything wrong- they were attacked. I'm not upset at them for their actions- I'm upset that they could have been hurt. Now, I do think it was poor judgment for Dak to go because I believe that the reason that they were targeted was because of Dak's fame. And I think it's more of a learning lesson for Dak if he continues to be famous that can't he can't just go out and have a good time like a normal person and that is the price of fame. The tradeoff is he gets a chance at millions, a free education, and etc. A lot of people would trade their "normal college kid life" for that- I personally would. But it comes with a price such as hard work and not being able to just go hang out at Panama City Beach without putting yourself at risk.

The thing with Elgton Jenk...I mean Brandon Bryant and Grant Harris is your typical frivolous law suit that permeates Mississippi. We're talking about a snowball fight here- and a lawyer trying to take advantage of a situation to make some money and help his alma mater. The lawyer will probably be bragging about how he got those "thug MSU players in trouble" in the Vaught-Hemingway bathroom. The guy apparently doesn't even know which football players hit him with a snowball since he went after the wrong guy. If I was Jenkins, I would probably be suing someone for slander and for wrongly taking out a warrant against me. Which would actually be a legit lawsuit for a change.

[BeardoMSU]

Bear is the only incident that really upsets me.

I disagree with you there. It's weed. To me, if the weed was found on him (which it wasn't, it was in the car, and no one claimed it), it should be viewed as the same as getting a MIP (minor in possession of alcohol). Totally harmless, and something everyone does or at least has done. The marijuana laws in the south are full Simple Jack. And for the record, I don't even smoke - I smoked in HS, but that's pretty much it. I know professors at MSU, colleagues of mine, that smoke every day. I prefer the cold beer or single malt, personally.

[Todd4State]

CDM talking about spring break.

Coach Mullen believes that boys will be boys and kids will have fun. But, are these guys just kids? I think this is probably true of most freshmen (first time away from momma and ready to spread their wings) Even sophomores I can understand, but juniors and seniors - hard to buy. I certainly didn't consider myself a kid when I was an upperclassman and definitely scaled back the party life in favor of studies and requirements of my field of study.

Not making a big deal of this but was just wondering when does a kid become a man? Has today's culture of openness made the 21 age standard obsolete as kids are exposed to a tremendous amount of information both good and bad. More importantly, is it fair to hold our SEC student athletes to a higher standard than the other students?

No, it's not "fair". But that's the price that comes with fame and exposure. They also get a lot of perks that a lot of students don't get and that's not "fair" to the other students- but the other students don't have to get up at 5 AM and hit the weight room, have their performances scrutinized by fans on the Internet, have to deal with injuries that may debilitate them for life or require repair at some point later in life.

There is a trade off there- and the fact of the matter is life is not fair, and it's not meant to be. We don't live in a YMCA culture where everyone gets a ribbon. The "fair" thing would be to let every student that wants to play QB at MSU have an equal shot and share playing time at QB. But the reality is the only people that truly deserve that chance are the 5-7 including walk-ons on campus that are willing to put in the work and have the God given ability to do that.

[Todd4State]

I disagree with you there. It's weed. To me, if the weed was found on him (which it wasn't, it was in the car, and no one claimed it), it should be viewed as the same as getting a MIP (minor in possession of alcohol). Totally harmless, and something everyone does or at least has done. The marijuana laws in the south are full Simple Jack. And for the record, I don't even smoke - I smoked in HS, but that's pretty much it. I know professors at MSU, colleagues of mine, that smoke every day. I prefer the cold beer or single malt, personally.

I don't care if they legalize weed or not and if someone wants to smoke it- that's their business. The fact of the matter is it is currently illegal- whether it should be or not- in Alabama which is where the incident took place. I'm pretty sure Bear knew that, and I'm pretty sure he knew that the people he was with liked to smoke it in all likelihood, therefore putting himself at risk even if he didn't smoke anything. I'm not upset that he was maybe going to smoke weed- I'm upset that he put himself in a bad situation.

[thf24]

I don't care if they legalize weed or not and if someone wants to smoke it- that's their business. The fact of the matter is it is currently illegal- whether it should be or not- in Alabama which is where the incident took place. I'm pretty sure Bear knew that, and I'm pretty sure he knew that the people he was with liked to smoke it in all likelihood, therefore putting himself at risk even if he didn't smoke anything. I'm not upset that he was maybe going to smoke weed- I'm upset that he put himself in a bad situation.

This. As I was trying to say in the last thread on the matter, just because weed should be legal, or at least carry lesser consequences, doesn't change the fact that it currently isn't and doesn't in the part of the country in question. Bad decision to put himself in that spot, period.

[BeardoMSU]

I don't care if they legalize weed or not and if someone wants to smoke it- that's their business. The fact of the matter is it is currently illegal- whether it should be or not- in Alabama which is where the incident took place. I'm pretty sure Bear knew that, and I'm pretty sure he knew that the people he was with liked to smoke it in all likelihood, therefore putting himself at risk even if he didn't smoke anything. I'm not upset that he was maybe going to smoke weed- I'm upset that he put himself in a bad situation.

I get what you're saying, but like I said: it IS illegal, but so is drinking before you're 21, but how many of us have done that? I'd wager at least 95% of the members of this board and most other SEC boards are guilty of this "crime". It sucks he got caught, but is it a big deal? Nope. Should he get suspended a game for it? Hell no! It's trivial. I'm more pissed by the alleged "snow ball" fight incident. Now I don't know what happened here, and it could have been totally innocent, but throwing a snowball with enough force at someones face is a real dick thing to do, especially if it was packed really hard (that's basically a ball of ice). It's a bully mentality, and a lot of athletes feel they can do that shit.

[starkvegasdawg]

I don't care if they legalize weed or not and if someone wants to smoke it- that's their business. The fact of the matter is it is currently illegal- whether it should be or not- in Alabama which is where the incident took place. I'm pretty sure Bear knew that, and I'm pretty sure he knew that the people he was with liked to smoke it in all likelihood, therefore putting himself at risk even if he didn't smoke anything. I'm not upset that he was maybe going to smoke weed- I'm upset that he put himself in a bad situation.

This guy gets it. We can argue from now to the rapture whether it should be legal and if it's more or less dangerous than alcohol. All that matters is that right now it's illegal and you get arrested for having it on you or near you. He knew that and still made the dumbass decision to get in the car anyway. Plus, whether he smokes or not, if he's around those that do then he's risking some secondhand inhalation which may show up on a piss test. If that happens then he just loses 25% of the season due to who he chose to hang around with. When you're a D-1 sec football player you've got extra rules that apply to you that don't apply to a regular college kid. It's the price of getting to suit up on Saturday. He's got to remember that and choose his friends wisely.

[TheDogFather]

I don't care if they legalize weed or not and if someone wants to smoke it- that's their business. The fact of the matter is it is currently illegal- whether it should be or not- in Alabama which is where the incident took place. I'm pretty sure Bear knew that, and I'm pretty sure he knew that the people he was with liked to smoke it in all likelihood, therefore putting himself at risk even if he didn't smoke anything. I'm not upset that he was maybe going to smoke weed- I'm upset that he put himself in a bad situation.

Let us not forget that DW told the officer that he would not be able to pass a drug test.

[ShotgunDawg]

I wouldn't worry about it fellas.

The U.S. Department of Justice has a stat that says that, "1 out of every 15 persons (6.6% of the total U.S. population) will serve time in prison during their lifetime." And this doesn't even include charges that people don't serve time in prison for.

The truth is if you took 100 people in any segment of society, random or non random, over the course of a few years, some would have problems, get arrested, and such. The truth is that statistically this stuff happens, and that, to some extent, there is nothing a coach, preacher, administrator, boss, teacher, or law enforcement can do about it.

There is no trend here and none of these guys should be kicked off the team.

In fact, I'll go the other way here and say that maybe we needed something like this so that Mullen could get some guy's attention and possibly keep something worse from happening. All of the incidents were harmless, and maybe, due to them, Mullen can get some guys to tighten down before something worse would have happened.

[thf24]

I get what you're saying, but like I said: it IS illegal, but so is drinking before you're 21, but how many of us have done that? I'd wager at least 95% of the members of this board and most other SEC boards are guilty of this "crime". It sucks he got caught, but is it a big deal? Nope. Should he get suspended a game for it? Hell no! It's trivial.

Totally agree with you here too, and in a frank, honest, ideal society, it would probably go down something like that. But the fact that it still carries a negative stigma with a large enough portion of the relevant population (including those guilty of it themselves) means that you just can't do it as a high-profile representative of a university that a star athlete inherently is; and if you get caught, perception demands that you pay the consequences in line with society's expectations. It's ass backwards, but that's simply the way it is at this point in time.

[Todd4State]

I get what you're saying, but like I said: it IS illegal, but so is drinking before you're 21, but how many of us have done that? I'd wager at least 95% of the members of this board and most other SEC boards are guilty of this "crime". It sucks he got caught, but is it a big deal? Nope. Should he get suspended a game for it? Hell no! It's trivial. I'm more pissed by the alleged "snow ball" fight incident. Now I don't know what happened here, and it could have been totally innocent, but throwing a snowball with enough force at someones face is a real dick thing to do, especially if it was packed really hard (that's basically a ball of ice). It's a bully mentality, and a lot of athletes feel they can do that shit.

You use the comparison of minor in possession of alcohol- I'm fairly sure that if one of our underage players got caught with that that Dan would suspend that player for one game as well. Essentially the same punishment as what Bear will get. And I highly suspect we're talking about the Northwestern State game- which many would consider trivial as well unless some major school records are broken or something like that.

[dawgs]

I know a lot of people that did a lot stupider shit than our recently arrested guys did, many of them did stupid shit well into their 20s. And a lot of them are now parents and have good careers making good money and are generally responsible upstanding citizens.

[mstatefan91]

You use the comparison of minor in possession of alcohol- I'm fairly sure that if one of our underage players got caught with that that Dan would suspend that player for one game as well. Essentially the same punishment as what Bear will get. And I highly suspect we're talking about the Northwestern State game- which many would consider trivial as well unless some major school records are broken or something like that.

Why would you suspend for the Northwestern State game and not just USM? Get it out of the way and move forward. Suspending for the 3rd game seems random

[PMDawg]

I disagree with you there. It's weed. To me, if the weed was found on him (which it wasn't, it was in the car, and no one claimed it), it should be viewed as the same as getting a MIP (minor in possession of alcohol). Totally harmless, and something everyone does or at least has done. The marijuana laws in 48 OF 50 STATES are full Simple Jack. And for the record, I don't even smoke - I smoked in HS, but that's pretty much it. I know professors at MSU, colleagues of mine, that smoke every day. I prefer the cold beer or single malt, personally.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good agenda, right?

[maroonmania]

Why would you suspend for the Northwestern State game and not just USM? Get it out of the way and move forward. Suspending for the 3rd game seems random

To me Bear's situation is somewhat similar to Nick Marshall last year who got cited for marijuana possession just prior to Fall camp. What did he get, like a one half suspension of their opening game? I don't think Malzahn gave him any more than that and Marshall was pulled over by himself in his car so there was no question that was his.