Honestly, I expect Anthony Gonzalez to remain suspended from the team through the summer, and reinstated before training camp. I suppose it could end sooner. First he has to have his day in court.

Pitt quarterback and Liberty High School graduate Anthony Gonzalez has a court date on July 11, when he will go before District Magistrate Nancy Matos Gonzalez to face three charges from his arrest last month.

Presumably, no relation. The three charges are: marijuana possession, underage drinking and carrying false identification.

The possession charge is a misdemeanor that maxes out on penalties with 30 days and/or $500 dollar fine. I sincerely doubt that Gonzalez will see any time for what appears to be his first offense. The other two are summary offenses.

Coach Todd Graham spoke about Gonzalez’s situation without saying anything.

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This is a guy that lived in a hotel for his single year in Stillwater. A guy regularly pounding Red Bulls during games. A bachelor. A disciple of Mike Leach. A guy already with a reputation for enjoying the party a bit. Oh, and he works at a school that already employs Bob Huggins.

With all of that, does anyone really think that he is facing any real problems? Or is he simply trying to fit in?

Multiple sources told the Charleston Daily Mail Holgorsen was removed from Mardi Gras Casino & Resort after 3 a.m. May 18. Holgorsen had been at a Mountaineer Athletic Club function earlier in the day in Logan before spending the evening at the casino with other university representatives.
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Stupid, foolish, careless and the sort of thing that happens to plenty of people. My feelings on Marijuana and it being illegal aside (pro-legalization), it is still a misdemeanor  criminal offense to possess it. That’s what Anthony Gonzalez is facing back home.

Bethlehem police said that Anthony Gonzalez was arrested early Friday on a charge of marijuana possession in Bethlehem. Gonzalez and two other men were arrested at 12:46 a.m. Friday at E. 3rd and Hobart streets in Bethlehem, police said. All three men are 19 and from Bethlehem, police said.

While not specified, the story lists the amount of marijuana on Gonzalez and the other two as “small.”

This is the context to explain the press release from Pitt last night saying that Gonzalez had been suspended indefinitely for violations of team rules.

Do I think he should be suspended right now? Yes. Dismissed from the team? Hardly. This is a misdemeanor offense of a victimless crime. A one point penalty in the Fulmer Cup.

Unfortunately, Pitt football may be in a zero tolerance situation. So the outcome of Gonzalez’s fate with Pitt is very much a question mark right now.

As a rule, I’m not a fan of “zero tolerance” policies. I don’t think its’ the ex-lawyer in me, I’ve never been a big supporter of them. Too many overreactions, and no shades of gray. Everyone wants the bright-line rule, but life isn’t that neat and tidy. And all too often they are reactionary not to actual problems but to the glaring spotlight of attention and scare reports.

/climbs down from soapbox

Pitt made no such announcement yesterday when Coach Todd Graham and AD Steve Pederson met with the media in light of the SI.com story that featured Pitt as the #1 team in terms of arrests in college football. The implications are there, but then they were already in place when Graham (and Haywood for that matter) was hired.

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If I had to do the same again

I would, my friend, Fernando…

If I have to have that miserable effing Abba song running through my head, you’re all going down with me.

Some deep recess of my mind dredged that song from the depths after Fernando M. Diaz, made sure that he was never coming back to the Pitt football team.

Diaz, who grew up in New York City, participated in preseason drills in August before leaving the team for personal reasons. He had wanted to return for spring drills, but Pitt coach Todd Graham said Wednesday he is no longer welcome.

“He will no longer be a part of our program,” Graham said.

Honestly, I know I should be aghast at the details and it reflecting on Pitt, yada, yada, yada. But, if this happened somewhere else I would be laughing and snickering quite a bit, so what the hell.

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Crud. I wanted to focus on basketball today and for a little while. That went out the window with the SI/CBS News freakout piece on Criminal Records in College Football. I still would have ignored it as being yet another piece without a lot of context, but plenty of scary numbers and implied accusations.

But there’s a problem. Pitt got to be the poster-boy for this.

Few football programs had a more difficult season in 2010 than the University of Pittsburgh. Led by running back Dion Lewis, a Doak Walker candidate, the Panthers were the preseason pick to win the Big East and go to a BCS bowl. But things quickly began unraveling — on and off the field.

In a span between mid-July and late September, four players were arrested for four separate, violent crimes.

…

Before this rash of arrests, Pitt had no procedure for screening football recruits for past trouble with the law. But after Knox’s arrest Pitt’s athletic department implemented a new policy requiring coaches to seek more detailed background information on potential recruits.

“This evaluation is not a legal criminal background check,” the school said in a statement. “Rather, it is a checklist of questions that attempts to gain greater knowledge of the behavior and citizenship of an individual prospect from a variety of people.”

It’s a good first step, but doesn’t go far enough. An unprecedented six-month investigation by Sports Illustrated and CBS News found that Pittsburgh had more players in trouble with the law (22) than any other school among SI’s 2010 preseason Top 25. The joint investigation involved conducting criminal background checks on every player — 2,837 in all — on the preseason rosters of those 25 teams. Players’ names, dates of birth and other vital information were checked at 31 courthouses and through 25 law enforcement agencies in 17 states. Players were also checked through one or more online databases that track criminal records. In all, 7,030 individual record checks were performed.

Pitt chancellor Mark Nordenberg and athletic director Steve Pederson declined requests for comment, but the school issued another statement, which said, “We have publicly acknowledged the unacceptable number of off-the-field incidents involving members of our football program during the past season. We have addressed these with the appropriate sanctions and spoke out against such behavior.”

And if you believe the undercurrents of rumors/message boards with the subtext of AD Pederson’s comments after Wannstedt’s firing, then you know part of the way it was addressed.

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Contrary to earlier reports that had Mike Haywood staying in a St. Joseph County, Indiana jail until Monday, Haywood was allowed to post bond and be released today. That’s about the only good news for Haywood at this point.

Mr. Haywood originally was not going to be released until after his arraignment Monday at 1:30 p.m., a jail official said this morning. However, that changed when the St. Joseph County Prosecutor increased the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony, according to the jail, allowing Mr. Haywood to be released earlier.

Under Indiana state law, domestic battery is a Class A misdemeanor, which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail and a maximum $5,000 fine. If the alleged battery occurred in the physical presence of a child who is younger than 16, it can be charged as a Class D felony.

According to the jail, the St. Joseph County Prosecutor increased the charge to a felony because the alleged battery took place in the presence of Mr. Haywood’s 21-month-old son. A Class D felony conviction could mean a jail term between six months and three years, with an advisory sentence of one and one-half years, and a maximum $10,000 fine.

When the alleged battery was classified as a misdemeanor, according to a jail official, Mr. Haywood’s bond could not be posted until a no-contact order was filed and he was arraigned. When the prosecutor’s office increased the charge to a felony, it issued an arrest warrant, which according to the jail established a bond and court date and allowed Mr. Haywood ‘s bond to be posted.

Now to be fair, and lord knows we saw a bit of that this past year with Pitt players — what you are charged with does not mean much other than giving the prosecution more leverage in plea negotiations.

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In so many ways across so many lines.

I don’t care if you thought this hire was a mistake or not. Or if you thought this would end poorly for Pitt, this was never expected. And no one should think that this will be good for Pitt in the short or even medium-term. So any triumphalism should be tempered by the complete FUBAR-edness of the matter.

The history of replacing a coach so quickly after a firing and hiring in college football is a small sample size. George O’Leary at ND and Mike Price at Alabama are the only ones to come to mind in recent years. In both cases, the next guy hired (Tyrone Willingham and Mike Shula, respectively) ended up lasting four years or less,  and not working out well.

The knee jerk reaction is that Haywood and AD Pederson need to go immediately. I admit that I can’t really argue against it based on the present situation, and what we know.

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Dammit. This 2010 year can’t come to a close soon enough for Pitt football.

This is not good.

NewsCenter 16 has confirmed that Mike Haywood, former Notre Dame player and offensive coordinator and newly-named Pittsburgh coach, has been arrested for domestic violence in South Bend.

St. Joseph County Police say Haywood was arrested around 2:30 p.m. on Friday at a home in the 50000 block of Hawthorne Meadow Drive.

He has a child with the woman living there.

Police say there was a custody issue and the woman attempted to leave.

As she left, police say a physical altercation broke out.

The woman told police Haywood grabbed her by the arm and neck and pushed her.

According to the police report, the woman had red marks on her neck, arms and back.

Wow. Just wow.

I’m not even going to speculate at this point. I have no idea how this plays out.

In one of the many jobs I have had in my life, I worked as a bank teller for Union National/Integra/National City/PNC Bank for a few years at Pitt and a little beyond. I would float from branch to branch filling in for sick or vacationing tellers. Eventually it timed out where a branch I was working out in Penn Hills got held-up.

It was the first and only time I’ve had a handgun stuck in my face. It happened quickly. I didn’t even look into the eyes of the masked robber. I just stared straight at the handgun — very aware how easily I could die at that moment — and then gave him the money. All the other details of that day and the robbery have fallen away after nearly 20 years. But I will never forget looking straight into the barrel of the weapon.

So everything about this situation sucks.

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Kentucky QB Brian Hartline apparently is a much-maligned figure. This column from a couple days ago advocates on his behalf.

21. A final verse of Hartline bashing. No sooner had the final seconds ticked off on Kentucky’s loss to Tennessee, than some UK football fans were agitating for the Cats to use their bowl trip as a training opportunity for Morgan Newton and Ryan Mossakowski rather than play fifth-year senior starter Mike Hartline.

20. Poor Hartline. Did Kentucky sit senior starter Andre Woodson for the 2007 Music City Bowl to train heir apparent Curtis Pulley? Of course not. No difference here. All Hartline did this year was have one of the best senior seasons of any UK QB (3,178 passing yards; 23 touchdowns with nine interceptions).

19. Joker Phillips’ response. “We gotta go try to win the game,” the Kentucky Coach said of UK’s appearance against Pittsburgh. “… Mike gives us the best chance.”

Hartline was also named 4th team All-SEC (A 4th team All-SEC? Really?) QB. So, given Pitt’s porous secondary and linebackers, this figured to be a major concern.

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[My high speed modem died on Wednesday, which felt like losing a limb. Just got a new one set-up.]

Some very direct candor from Coach Wannstedt regarding Jason Douglas, Dan Mason and the DUI.

Also, middle linebacker Dan Mason was demoted to second team after being in the same car as running back Jason Douglas during a hit-and-run early Sunday on the South Side.

Max Gruder will start at middle linebacker and Tristan Roberts and Greg Williams will start at outside linebacker against Miami on Sept. 23.

Douglas, 19, who was driving, was charged with causing an accident resulting in serious injury, aggravated assault, DUI and underage drinking. Mason was a passenger in the car, but wasn’t charged.

Wannstedt met with Mason and his family Wednesday morning.

“This is for his good,” Wannstedt said. “He needs to prove to me that he can do the right things and be accountable off the field, in the classroom and on the football field. When he does that, he will get his job back.”

I don’t think it will be too long before Mason is back in the middle. But this is the minimum that has to happen to him.

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You know it would be. Stupid. Moronic. Punch line right there.

Police said Douglas stumbled from his car and nearly fell when officers confronted him.

“Hey, I play for Pitt football. … Please don’t arrest me,” Douglas told officers, according to a criminal complaint.

It would be, except that this wasn’t just a DUI incident where he was caught, and we can just go tsk-tsk about how bad it could have been while making all the jokes that it would normally deserve.

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Ron Cook had a column this morning taking Pitt’s athletic director and football coach to task for the non-suspension of Jabaal Sheard.

If I’ve heard Wannstedt and athletic director Steve Pederson say it once, I’ve heard them say dozens of times that they want a strong program at Pitt — not just a strong team — and that they’re always going to do the right thing for the long term rather than overlook problems for short-term benefit.

Well, guess what?

Hey, I know that admirable policy isn’t always easy to follow. Wannstedt and Pederson wouldn’t have to swallow hard to suspend Sheard if he were a third-string defensive end or if Pitt’s opener was against New Hampshire at Heinz Field. Of course, it’s a lot more difficult in this case. But that doesn’t change the message Wannstedt and Pederson will be sending if they allow Sheard to play at Utah. They might as well tack up a sign in the locker room that says: “If you’re a good enough player and the game is really big, you can get away with bad behavior.”

I’ve already indicated my feelings on this, and that a suspension for the first game still would make more sense to me.

Today was the opening of Pitt’s training camp and Coach Wannstedt wanted to get out in front of all of this.

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Well nothing like a plea deal to bring things back down to a manageable level.

Sheard, 21, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He also agreed to pay medical bills for the victim, Edward Parker, 27, of Stanton Heights, and write a letter of apology to him.

District Judge Robert Ravenstahl approved the plea agreement and ordered Sheard to pay a fine of $300, plus court costs.

The disorderly conduct charge is a summary offense. The charges dropped in the plea deal were the aggravated assault (felony), resisting arrest and criminal mischief.

Sheard’s defense attorney declared the outcome unsurprising and typical for a first-time offender.

Parker was knocked through a glass door at the art gallery and suffered cuts and bruises, which Sheard attorney William Diffenderfer said required “a few staples in his head.” Diffenderfer said Parker has 90 days to forward his medical bills from UPMC Shadyside Hospital to Sheard.

“This was an unfortunate fist fight on the South Side,” said Diffenderfer, who added that the agreement with Parker was worked out “amicably.”

“Frankly, from my experience, it was handled no differently than any other fist fight.”

Both Sheard and Parker declined comment as they left the courtroom.

Following this, Jabaal Sheard was reinstated to Pitt’s’ football team.

“This situation with Jabaal was as surprising as it was disappointing to me,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said in a statement released by the university. “Until this incident, his behavior has always been representative of the high standards we have for our program on and off the field. I’m confident he will learn from this and be wiser moving forward.”

According to the statement, Wannstedt said Sheard will continue to be subject to internal discipline and accountability.

The indications are that the “internal discipline and accountability” will be of the Bobby Bowden variety.

…likely including some extra running and conditioning drills, but it looks like all systems are go for him to start the team’s opener at Utah.

I’m feeling decidedly ambivalent about things if that is the extent of the punishment.

From the football side of things, there is no question that this is good and helps the team immeasurably in what is a very tough opening game on the road. It also feeds into the idea of not punishing the team for Sheard’s actions. And of course, the final dispensation of the case is that Sheard ultimately pled guilty to a single disorderly conduct charge — a very minor offense

But…

He still put a guy through a glass door while fighting. He still acted so recklessly and dangerously. There are no actual disputes as to what the police report indicated occurred.  At least a suspension for the opening game seems like it still would have been appropriate.