On Friday, head coach Chip Kelly said the following about the spate of legal incidents that have hit his Oregon football program since the calendar turned from 2009 to 2010:
“If a player doesn’t live up to the standards we have for the football program, then they’re not going to be here,” Kelly said Friday. “But I’m also not going to follow our kids around every Friday or Saturday night so I can see what happened to them.”
After the events of 2:19 a.m. PST, Kelly might want to consider a chaperone service. Or shadowing his players. Or putting his program on lockdown while shadowing the chaperones.
Unbelievably, and, as noted by The Oregonian, mere hours after Kelly’s impromptu state-of-the-program address, yet another Duck has found himself in legal hot water.
Redshirt sophomore-to-be Kiko Alonso was pulled over early Saturday morning and charged with DUI, the paper reports. The linebacker was arrested at a local 7-Eleven.
(Is their coffee really that good?)
Alonso becomes the fifth -- fifth -- player to be arrested in less than a month.
Star running back LaMichael James was arrested in the middle of last week on domestic violence charges, which included ominous words such as “strangulation” and “menacing”.
Kicker Rob Beard was charged with assault on the same day of James’ arrest after allegedly slapping a 19-year-old female last month. That precipitated a brawl that involved upwards of 40 people and ultimately ended with Beard unconscious courtesy of several boots/Dockers to the head. And initially hospitalized in intensive care in critical condition before undergoing facial surgery.
Matt Simms was charged with simple assault late last month for allegedly retaliating against a person he believed was involved in Beard’s beating.
And that’s without even mentioning the accusations levied against star quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who was fingered by several frat brothers as one of two perps in a robbery at their fraternity house. The other perp? Wide receiver Garrett Embry, who, along with Simms, is no longer part of the program.
We don’t know what Kelly should do about all of these off-field incidents, but we will offer up a little perspective into the situations: what you’re doing simply ain’t working. Not even remotely. And your players are doing nothing but embarrassing your football program and, more importantly, your university.
Females -- allegedly -- aren’t the only people getting a black eye out of all of this tumult.
At least from the outside looking in, it looks very much like Kelly is the lead man of a program that’s running amuck and roughshod through the streets of Eugene.
Certainly, that’s not the case. But appearances can be a bitch. As can digging yourself out of a PR hole a little less than a year after first taking over the program.