Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich suggested his Ducks were the only one of the four College Football Playoff teams to be tested for drugs by the NCAA leading up to the postseason mini-tournament. That seemed odd, and perhaps it is now being proven otherwise.
Wide receiver Darren Carrington was suspended last postseason for failing an NCAA drug test before the College Football Playoff. An appeal by Oregon before the championship game was denied by the NCAA, and now it remains to be seen how much playing time Carrington might miss this fall. During the Pac-12 media days last week, Helfrich used the Carrington suspension as the crux of his argument for each power conference to be playing by the same set of rules, in which he stated Oregon was the only one of the four playoff teams to be randomly drug tested.
“If one team is tested in the College Football Playoff, everybody should be tested in the College Football Playoff,” Helfrich said, as quoted by The Oregonian. It turns out all four teams -- Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State and Oregon -- were administered random drug tests by the NCAA. That is what Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports is reporting Monday, citing an anonymous source. If Feldman’s report carries any weight -- and given the reputation of Feldman, it should -- then whoever fed Helfrich that information should have some explaining to do to the head coach of the Ducks.
What players were and were not tested is not known, other than Carrington of course.