Because of the nature of the SECs spring meetingscoaches talk to coaches, and then athletic directors; ADs talk to ADs and coaches, then university presidentsa game of telephone broke out last week.
On Tuesday Georgia officials introduced a proposal to ban transfers who had been booted from their previous schools for several different offenses. By Wednesday, coaches hinted that new SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who took over for Mike Slive on Monday, may receive Roger Goodell-like powers to administer a personal conduct policy for the leagues athletes. By Thursday, when the presidents arrived, the rule had shifted back toward its original form. And while coaches and ADs might have had other prioritiessatellite camps, cost of attendance transparencythis issue seemed to top the presidents list. But could everyone agree on parameters in time to pass the rule?
On Friday the presidents passed a rule that bans players who were subject to official university or athletics department disciplinary action at any time during enrollment at any previous collegiate institution
due to serious misconduct from transferring to an SEC school. In this case, serious misconduct is defined as sexual assault, domestic violence or other forms of sexual violence.
This is the first rule of its kind from any FBS conference, and it should prove an interesting experiment. While it doesnt give Sankey the same powers Goodell has in the NFL, it does offer a hard-and-fast rule for situations that conferences usually allow member schools to negotiate on an individual basis.
Why did this happen now? The simple answer is it happened because of Jonathan Taylor, and because Georgia players who committed various offenses kept showing up on other SEC campuses. The even simpler answer is that the presidents of at least eight SEC schools felt like someone should take a stand against this kind of behavior, and this was what they could do to take that stand.
Taylor is a 64, 336-pound defensive tackle who was booted by the Bulldogs last July after being arrested on a domestic violence charge. He was accused of choking his girlfriend and striking her several times with a closed fist. According to the arrest report, officers noted scratches and red marks on the womans neck and bruises on her arms and legs. Taylor pleaded not guilty to the charge in April. After leaving Athens last summer, he spent a semester at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Wesson, Miss., and was courted by several SEC schools there. He wound up signing with Alabama, where he enrolled in January. In March, Taylor was arrested in Tuscaloosa on another domestic violence charge. He was booted from Bama, and though the woman in that case recanted her accusation and has been charged with filing a false police report, the case against Taylor is pending.
Alabama coach Nick Saban caught all the heat for signing Taylor, but that wasnt fair because he wasnt the only SEC coach who recruited him. That fact bothered the coaches and ADs at the schools that would not have taken a player kicked out of his previous school for domestic violence. It also bothered some people at the schools banned by a different SEC rule from taking Notre Dame graduate transfer Everett Golson. Golson, a quarterback with one year of eligibility remaining, would have required a waiver to play in the SEC because he was suspended for a semester from Notre Dame for cheating on a test. Why, some wondered, were schools discouraged from recruiting Golson but welcome to sign Taylor?
One official at an SEC school put it this way after the new rule passed: There shouldnt have to be a rule that deals with this. That official is correct. Rapists and people who beat up their significant others dont deserve the privilege of playing major college sports. You can view this rule as a kneejerk political reaction, and you wouldnt be wrong. But ask yourself this: Isnt any rule that offers real consequences for these offenses a good rule?
After all, we live in a society in which Ray Rice can knock out his fiancée in an elevatoron video, erasing any reasonable doubtand serve no jail time. If Rice or other domestic abusers got thrown in prison for five years when they slugged their partners, sports leagues wouldnt need to make rules to keep them out. But state and local judicial systems, which are ultimately controlled by the voters, dont seem to care enough to offer harsh penalties. For the vast majority of people who cant fathom raping someone or punching a spouse, this behavior is unacceptable and must be stamped out. In the case of domestic violence, courts simply dont do enough. Its understandable why some people feel they must do something. The intent all along has been on the domestic violence end, said Georgia AD Greg McGarity. Youre seeing things play out in other areas like the NFL. We all felt we did not want to be in that position and cause embarrassment to the conference.
But its always tricky when sports leagues try to deal with real-world problems. Witness the NFLs inability to administer punishments that fit its crimes. For knocking out his fiancée in an elevator, Baltimore Ravens tailback Rice initially got a two-game suspension. For deflating footballs, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady received a four-game suspension. College leagues havent waded into these waters for two reasons. First, university leaders prefer to discipline students as they see fit. Every campus has a different culture. Thats why a BYU player can get suspended for having sex out of wedlock while few others would face the same penalty. Second, there is always the threat of a lawsuit if a league bans a player who turns out to be innocent of the charge. This is especially concerning in sexual assault cases in which schools issue discipline but law enforcement cant find enough evidence to pursue a charge. The accused also deserves rights.
Sankey said the league will have a waiver policy in place for such situations. By tying the ban to the action taken by the previous school (and not by the courts) and by asserting that playing in the SEC is a privilege and not a right, the conference is trying to protect itself from itself. This way, the ban is triggered as soon as the previous school dismisses the player.
The original proposal by Georgia included more offenses. This makes sense, since the Bulldogs have donated more contributors to other SEC teams by kicking off players than anyone else. Zach Mettenberger (accused of groping a woman, signed with LSU after junior college) and Nick Marshall (accused of theft from a teammate, signed with Auburn after junior college) played quarterback against the Bulldogs. This season, safety Tray Matthews (accused of double-cashing a scholarship check, verbal disruption in a class) will start at Auburn.
McGarity said conversations about specific offenses changed the tone of the original conversation during meetings last week. Every athletic director in the room was concerned about it. The concern was perhaps it growing in scope, McGarity said. That started a discussion that, as you saw, was totally outside the lane of what the proposal dealt with. That discussion produced the concerns over an SEC personal conduct policy that mimicked the NFLs, but ADs and presidents reined in the discussion by limiting the scope to those three classes of offenses.
This produced some logical questions following the passage of the rule. On Twitter, readers asked why the SEC didnt include murder, armed robbery or any number of serious offenses. The presidents wanted to pass this rule now. Doing that meant using only the offenses upon which enough could agree. As for murder, a player accused of that could be unavailable to play for the rest of his life. That probably would render him unrecruitable from a practical standpoint.
The ADs and presidents were worried about the players coaches can and do recruit. Georgia, for example, could not recruit a player with any of those offenses on his rap sheet. The Bulldogs have that written into an athletic department policy. But like drug-testing policiesanother area where Georgias stance becomes a competitive disadvantageevery school has different standards for the players it takes and the offenses that trigger a dismissal.
It will be interesting to see if this rule spills outside its narrow definition. Had the rule been in place this off-season, it wouldve banned SEC schools from recruiting Taylor or Devonte Fields, the former TCU defensive end who signed with Louisville in February even though the Horned Frogs booted him after a domestic violence arrest. (Fields recently reached an agreement to have his misdemeanor assault charge dropped in exchange for completing four anger management courses.) It would not have kept LSU from bringing in tailback Jeremy Hill in 2012. While in high school in 11, Hill was charged with oral sexual battery in an incident involving another 18-year-old and a 14-year-old fellow student. Hill pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile. He had to wait a year to sign with LSU, but he went on to become a star for the Tigers. Hill would later sucker-punch a man during a fight at a Baton Rouge bar and get drafted into the NFL. With this rule in place, would a school think twice about a high-schooler who committed an act that might get a college student banned from playing in the SEC?
SEC coaches and ADs spent much of last week arguing about rules unique to the SEC that placed SEC programs at what the coaches consider a competitive disadvantage. The SEC bans coaches from working camps more than 50 miles from their campus, while other leagues have no such ban. The SEC also has the aforementioned graduate transfer restriction. None of the others have a similar rule. The general consensus regarding those two rules was if the rest of the nation doesnt want to adopt them, the SEC would fall into step with everyone else.
That doesnt seem to be the case with the new transfer ban. Sankey seems comfortable with it even if no other conference passes a similar rule. In this case, the SEC is content to stand alone.
Im not worried about that, Sankey said. I think its a leadership opportunity.
