The arrest of Joe Clermond for possession of marijuana is frustrating and mainly stupid. The fact is, I think Clermond will have to be suspended for at least two games. Mainly because his behavior was incredibly stupid, selfish and irresponsible.

On a personal/political level, I stand with former Pitt great Mark Stepnoski on legalization of marijuana. I find this offense  at the level of underage drinking or violating an open container law on my personal scale of where it ranks in offenses by college athletes. I’m not a big fan of the drug war and that’s the extent I’ll editorialize on the issue.

The fact is, though, that Clermond was arrested and charged with possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana. A minor misdemeanor punishable by up to  30 days and a $500 fine. The “good news” for Clermond is that the charges don’t include anything about paraphernalia — which is actually a more serious misdemeanor. He broke the law and was caught.

He’s also a scholarship player at Pitt representing the school and the football team. He was one of the players to go to Big East Media Days. An expected team captain and leader on the defense. He has dinged his own future — with a character flag.  In other words, he has to carry and behave as more than simply a college kid.

It might seem unfair to Clermond to be held to a higher standard, but it’s not like he was unaware of the way things are.

There’s a good chance the charges could be dropped if someone else takes the blame for the stuff. That doesn’t matter. Clermond was there with it present. He bears responsibility to the team, and I don’t see how Coach Wannstedt doesn’t suspend him for at least one game or two.

Joe Clermond is one of the shining parts of a defense that lost three NFL Draft picks. He’s the poster boy of the 2007 defense and is on the schedule wallpaper/poster this year. He’s also on the Watch List for the 2007 Bronko Nagurski Trophy given to the top defensive player in college football, as well as on Watch Lists for the Chuck Bednarik and Ted Hendricks awards.

Now, he’s in trouble with the law for marijuana possession. Riding home with a few other people, the car he was in was pulled over with a small amount of marijuana found. He was released but will be in court for a preliminary hearing set for July 30.

“We are aware of the situation that occurred over the weekend involving Joe Clermond,” Pitt spokesman E.J. Borghetti said. “At this juncture we will decline comment and let the judicial process run its course.”

I’m sure we’ll hear more about this over the next few days and weeks.

Edit: For what it’s worth…

Sources tell PSI that Clermond is insisting that he wasn’t smoking the marijuana and was just in the car.

I know many are getting antsy to see more football posts, but I’m just not there yet. This despite a steady perusal of “Phil Steele’s 2007 College Football Preview.” Hopefully the Big East Media Days next week will generate something amusing and kick me in that direction.

In the meantime, I highly recommend the 2-part series “Enter the Octonion” (Part 1 and Part 2) from Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician. It had me at “God dammit I need to stop doing whippets.”

Meanwhile, for the more nostalgic, there is a nice piece on former Pitt QB Fred Mazurek who led the 1963 9-1 Pitt team to no bowl appearance that year.

On a less proud alumni note, Bill Maas is done as a broadcaster for Fox Sports after his arrest for felony drug and weapons. Way to nail that daily double.

On the positive side, a nice puffer on Jason Pinkston looking to have a big year somewhere on the O-line.

“We’ve basically just been running and lifting and training hard with Buddy,” Pinkston said. “So, we’re just trying to get ready for camp and the season, and I think we’re all working hard to get there. I played in the spring at about 315 pounds, and I lost around 15 pounds and put a lot of muscle on since then. So, I’m about 300 even right now. And I feel real good.

“This is a very important offseason for us. We just started with Buddy a short time ago, and he expects a lot from us. So, we’re working hard to get back to the type of Pitt team that we were in the past. The guys you mentioned, I think it was good for all of us to kind of get a taste for it last year. And now we’re ready to play even more this season.”

Pinkston’s improvement has given hope to an offensive line that has been maligned in recent years for inconsistent play and depth problems due to injuries and attrition. He certainly appears to be capable of handling a starting assignment, should McGlynn move to center or anywhere else for that matter. And while nothing is set, Pitt’s coaching staff has more options on the line than it has in a while. And that can’t hurt.

The Center position is going to be the issue. If Vangas or Bachman can get their play to a level that lets them start, Pinkston helps supply depth on the O-line. If he starts, that means McGlynn is at Center and on every play, O-Line Coach Paul Dunn will be praying that no one gets hurt.

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle did a piece on football prospect Averin Collier and how much texting goes on in the recruiting process. Collier says during one recent month he received over 1000 text messages from coaches that want them at their schools. It’s pretty safe to assume Pitt is one of those schools and Dave Wannstedt is one of the coaches that sends him multiple messages per day.

“The recruiters ruined it because they overdid it,” he said. “It was a classic case of overkill, of trying to keep up with the Joneses. Syracuse sends you seven text messages in a day, so Pitt figures it has to send eight, and so on and so on. It just escalated to a point where it became ridiculous.”

He won’t need to worry once August 1 rolls around; at that point the NCAA’s ban on “electronically transmitted correspondence” goes into effect.

I’d also love to know how these coaches are sending these messages. Is it from a phone issued by the athletic department? Do they get a phone (probably more like a Blackberry) for texting? I wonder if I can get Wannstedt’s number and maybe we can chat about the season…

(Hat tip: David in Orlando)

Put this under waste of talent.

One time Pitt recruit and former USF receiver, Johnny Peyton, was arrested and charged with possession of crack cocaine.

Coming out of HS for the 2004 recruiting class, Peyton was an solid receiver with tons of potential. He was supposed to be a good recruit for Pitt, and on signing day was considered a big score for USF. He set receiving and TD marks at USF as a freshman. His sophomore year wasn’t as good and shortly afterwards he either left the team or was kicked off of it — depending on who you ask.

I joked about a curse on 2004 recruits who reneged on verbals to Pitt. This, though, is Peyton’s own doing and own bad decisions.

I look forward to this story in the next alumni e-mail.

A former defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Raiders and the Cleveland Browns pleaded guilty yesterday to helping his live-in girlfriend run a high-end prostitution ring out of his parents’ Monroeville home.

Three other defendants face charges this month in connection with the prostitution and drug ring investigators say was run by the ball player’s girlfriend, Amy Schifano.

After kissing his mother and hustling his parents out of the courtroom, a subdued John Robert “Buck” Buczkowski, 43, stepped forward and pleaded to two counts of promoting prostitution, six counts of possessing and dealing cocaine, and one count each of participating in a corrupt organization, conspiracy, dealing in the proceeds of an illegal activity and illegal use of a cell phone.

He faced a sentence of 43¹/₂ to 87 years had he gone to trial. Instead, he agreed to testify against his co-defendants if they proceed to trial.

After a short-lived career in the NFL, the former Gateway and University of Pittsburgh football star bought the Gold Rush restaurant and bar in Monroeville and ran it with his parents.

The girlfriend seems to have been a real go-getter. She seemed to be the brains and facing the most charges. Buck apparently was the muscle.

I didn’t believe it then, or now. No, not the charges, the claim that this was a high-end prostitution ring. Out of Monroeville? For around $200/appointment? Talk about the affordable prices in Pittsburgh.

Not sure how I missed this the first time I scanned through, but this is a nice little gem.

Strong allegedly broke Sappleton’s two cell phones and Sappleton was pushed to the ground. Medics checked Sappleton and found no abrasions, contusions or swelling relative to the incident.

Strong’s lady friend had two cell phones? For some reason this made me laugh. And yes, this is in fact the most Pitt related news we’ve seen this weekend.

Only 89 days until kickoff.

Darrell Strong didn’t take Memorial Day off from causing trouble.

Strong, 21, of Sunrise, Fla., is accused of damaging the woman’s purse and cell phone during the altercation that began in an apartment and moved to a fast-food restaurant in the Waterfront complex where police were called at 7:55 p.m. Monday, Homestead police Chief Jeffrey DeSimone said.

Of course it’s known that Dave Wannstedt can be harsh with his punishment of players, even for seemingly small offenses.

“After meeting with Darrell, I have decided that he will be subject to internal disciplinary measures effective immediately.”

Thankfully he wasn’t stupid enough to injure her and is was a dispute with some shoving (not like that kind of action should be condoned either) or else we could have another pretty big punishment handed down my Wannstedt.

By now you’ve heard that Joe Paterno has decided on a punishment for his football team after some inexcusable behavior: have the entire team clean the stadium after a game day and give all of the money earned to the club teams which use such income to fund their sports. Sounds pretty good, right?

No doubt Paterno is a smart man, at least in some sense. Not smart enough for a few people to see right through his punishment though.

If you peel back the warm and fuzzy blanket, it’s as much a preemptive strike at the University’s Office of Judicial Affairs as it is corporal punishment for the players.

Consider the timing of the announcement. It comes before the Judicial Affairs folks begin their hearings into the incident.

In the pecking order of justice, the legal system is first, then Judicial Affairs and finally, Paterno’s court.

It is also a calculated move to undercut the Judicial Affairs office by taking matters into his own hands and meting out his own punishment. That will make anything Judicial Affairs decides to do look like overkill and further advance the perception that Judicial Affairs has some vendetta against the football team.

Yes, Joe Paterno is smart, but Ron Bracken is just a step ahead.

Last week the NCAA Rules Committee approved moving the 3-point line back 1 foot starting in the 2008 season. The women’s line will remain at 19’9″, so there will be the unaesthetic sight of two arcs running parallel. That should confuse refs and players periodically. Another early observation was that the moving the line back, would be a hit to the mid-majors that rely more on shooters than players going inside.

The overall consensus in the media and most fans, though, has been overwhelmingly positive. Myself included. It shouldn’t be a shot where teams average over 33%. It should be a much tougher shot, and taken less frequently. Mike DeCourcy gives a good breakdown of what is hoped to be accomplished with it.

Empirical: Of every 10 shots taken in the 2006-07 season, 3.4 were launched from 3-point range, up from about 1.5 of every 10 in 1986-87, the first year of the 3-pointer. Over the past 11 seasons, 3-point accuracy improved from 34.1 percent to 35.0 percent.

Anecdotal: “You’ve got bad shooters taking it — you’ve also got bad shooters making it,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey says.

Teams that set their perimeter players behind the 3-point line on offense will have to move them back. Teams that try to drop from the perimeter to double-team the ball in the post on defense will have more ground to cover. With less congestion in the key area, it likely will be easier for officials to identify the bumping, clutching and grabbing that defenders employ to disrupt offensive flow.

All this is expected to enhance the value of player movement, with and without the basketball. It’s a more beautiful game when the players are in motion.

When the local Pittsburgh college coaches were surveyed on the issue, it seems to reflect the view of major/mid-major biases. Coach Dixon was happy about it.

Pitt’s Jamie Dixon, whose Panthers rank among the nation’s elite programs, takes a different viewpoint than his counterparts at Duquesne and Robert Morris.

“I don’t think it will make too much of a difference,” Dixon said. “It was just a matter of time. We all knew this was coming. When I sent in my survey, I knew it [the line] was getting changed. I thought if they were going to move it, they should take it back to the international line.”

Mike Rice at Robert Morris isn’t a fan of moving it back; and Ron Everhart at Duquesne seems tepid at best. The one thing Dixon and Everhart did agree was that the lane should have been widened as well. Maybe they will take that up later.

There are always unintended consequences of a rule change. Syracuse and teams that play zone, look to be beneficiaries of the move.

One is how the move might encourage more teams to play a zone defense because if a zone is designed to force opponents to shoot 3-pointers, it’s reasonable to think more teams will become favorable of zones considering 3-pointers should now by definition be more difficult to make. Meanwhile, the schools that already predominantly play zone will likely enjoy a larger degree of success.

Advantage: Syracuse.

“Jim Boeheim, right now, is very happy,” UCLA coach Ben Howland told CBS SportsLine.com on Thursday afternoon. “In college basketball, you don’t have the same skill level as you do in the NBA, so you’re going to see a lot more zone.”

Things could really come together for the ‘Cuse in ’08 when you factor in that their ’07 recruiting class is huge in terms of ranking (top-5) and numbers (6 new players). They have a year to learn the zone and get comfortable with each other before the new rule. I’m just making note of that now.

DeCourcy also identified the type of players that will benefit from the move after next season: “The Bomber (Chris Lofton, Tennessee); Mid-range shooters (Jerel McNeal, Marquette); Aggressive wing players (Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis); Point guards who can run the fast break (Darren Collison, UCLA); and the Strong low-post players (Darrell Arthur, Kansas).

In the final group he includes DeJuan Blair as a player that will be dominating in the low-post, and will benefit from the change.

Good news for Pitt, the NCAA’s Academic Progress Reports have been released, and Pitt (PDF) is still in good shape.

For several years, we have been hearing and reading about how the APR would really start to improve for Pitt football once they started taking into account the post-Johnny Majors (the Walt Harris) years, and sure enough the multiyear APR for the football team it hit 948 this year. That’s well above the 925 minimum and apparently in the 70th-80th percentile among football programs.

In basketball, it was only 907, but because the sample size was too small (not enough players who were eligible to graduate) there are no penalties. Next year will be the big year as the 4th year will be included. Pitt does appear to be in good shape to meet the standards by that point.

UPDATE: I also did a general post for AOL. Not many BCS schools had scholarship losses in basketball and football. Arizona football lost 4 scholarships, Iowa State basketball 2 scholarships and Cincinnati basketball 1 scholarship.

Dennis took a tepid pro-texting ban, but I disagree. I understand the outright ban on texting, insofar as the whole concept of regulating and controlling it would be extremely difficult and tricky. Limiting it to certain times, only controls when received. Last I checked, you can put text messages in a draft folder and wait to send them. Still, the reaction by the NCAA seems to be an overreaction to new means of communication — simply banning them all.

The move comes a week after the NCAA’s management council recommended passage of the ban, which also eliminates communications through other electronic means such as video phones, video conferencing and message boards on social networking Web sites.

E-mails and faxes would still be permissible and subject to current NCAA guidelines, which include some time periods that prohibit coaches from contacting recruits in any form.

The ban on texting is going to be a double-edged sword for Pitt athletics. Specifically in football and basketball. The ban on texting, coupled with the limits on phone calls and other communications limits building a relation with players. What it does, is re-invite the middle men. Whether it be a friend of the targeted recruit or the HS (or prep or JUCO) coach.

While there is disagreement on this issue, one thing is clear: This new regulation is going to put the onus back on the high school coaches to become more involved in the recruiting process. Instead of texting a prospect to have them call them when they’re free, college coaches will now rely on the high school coaches to help them build the relationship with the prospects.

That can be both good and bad, but most college football assistants agree the bigger schools will have an advantage thanks to this ruling.

High school coaches might be more willing to help get a kid to call back if they’ve received a message from a national power like Notre Dame, Texas, USC or Florida. But what about the smaller schools or a school that’s trying to build a program?

This may be fine in Western Pennsylvania for football, with Coach Wannstedt and schmoozing the HS coaches in the area. It becomes an issue, though, in trying to recruit kids in other areas. It brings back the emphasis on bigger programs that are on TV plenty and the local programs in any geographic areas.

Even coaches in support of the ban agree with that.

“It would kind of push it back towards the teams that are on television the most. Those teams might benefit from it,” [GT Coach, Paul] Hewitt said.

“If you look at the whole timeline of recruiting, they used to say it’s about out-working people. They would call kids every day, then write letters to kids every day. Then about 1990, they said you could only call once a week and limited how many days you could go see kids and that kind of took away some of the parity.

“Now, with this whole text-messaging thing, kids are now having communication and open dialogue with more programs. Obviously the programs at the bottom trying to make their way up are probably text-messaging more than the guys that are at the top. In a funny way, I think the parity we see in college basketball is about the levels of communication we have with kids.”

That will make things interesting for Pitt basketball. Don’t expect Pitt to be on the Mouse Monopoly at the same level as this past season. Louisville and GT are the early leaders for most appearances based on early expectations. Syracuse and UConn will get their usual appearances. Pitt will be on TV, but they won’t be the lead dog.

What bothers me is the middle men. You know they will be there. And that means you need them for access. That also opens the door to all sorts of slimy dealings from those who can use the access to the recruits for their own benefit.

Finally, there’s the big loophole — e-mail and cell phones. Every major carrier now can let you tie an existing e-mail account to your cell phone to receive them. Essentially the same thing, only e-mail is treated like regular mail so it is unlimited. So much for solving the problem.

In that respect it’s like money and politics. The money is going to flow, no matter what barriers and blocks are put in the way.

Technology is shaping the world we live in and the recruiting world can be bundled in with that statement as well. The text messaging of recruits has really picked up some publicity within the last year or two and now the NCAA has banned coaches from texting their recruits.

Coaches are reacting in all different ways from “I think we should be allowed to do it any time we feel,” to “Only on weekends,” to “The ban is a good thing,” to “I don’t even know how to work the damn phone.”

According to Andy Katz, Jamie Dixon feels each text message sent should count as a recruiting call. There is a limit of one call per week to a recruit so in effect you would be allowed to send one text per week to a recruit. Not a bad idea, but since the limit of characters you can send in a single message is around 160 characters then it makes much more sense to call the potential player.

That may have not been a bad route for the NCAA to take. The coaches that want to freely text message their players would see that with a limit, it makes more sense to call and texting would happen much less without placing an official ban on it.

I don’t think free texting should be allowed. Some of these high school kids want to live their lives and being constantly bombarded is unnecessary. If you can’t have unlimited phone calls and visits, who should texting be a free for all? I think I might also get creeped out if I’m getting a message every 5 minutes from an old man (read: 72-year-old Arizona coach Lute Olson).

I guess when you’re trying to live the life of a rapper, beating your wife/girlfriend is just part of the road to stardom. Keith “KB” Benjamin took care of that but could have the charges dropped and get off the hook if he can keep his hands off his former girlfriend (and vice versa).

“All parties agreed to go 30 days. If there are no incidents, all charges will be dropped.”

I’ll bet any money that if you asked Jamie Dixon to make a comment on it, he’d make the most positive comment possible. That would simply be “Dixon being Dixon”.

Backup Guard Keith Benjamin and his girlfriend were arrested and charged with simple assault after a domestic dispute. They were apparently arguing over car keys. The girlfriend had some scratches on her face neck and her knee was bloody. Both refused medical treatment. Both claimed to have been hit by the other.

They were arraigned and released. The preliminary hearing is on Thursday. Call it a hunch, but I suspect neither will be pressing charges.

It’s stupid and wrong on so many levels, but I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Benjamin has never been in trouble before this. It’s not good.

I’ll defer to those who know the Allegheny County Criminal Court and Police system far better than I (go ahead, Pat), so correct me if I’m wrong. It is probably standard procedure to take both into police custody and file charges in cases of domestic disputes. Then let things be sorted out.

UPDATE: This story makes it a bigger deal. That detail of “Officers observed swelling and a bruise on Olczak’s right cheek,” makes this much more serious. The earlier story made no mention of this injury.