Late last month, Oklahoma’s Calum Sutherland was arrested for being drunk in public. As it turns out, that’s the least of the kicker’s off-field concerns.
According to a report from The Oklahoman, Sutherland is the subject of a Title IX investigation after it was alleged that he physically assaulted his girlfriend in the early morning hours of Sept. 21. That was the same day he was arrested for public intoxication.
The newspaper states that the university’s Title IX office is in the initial stages of its investigation.
The alleged victim told police that she was involved in “a short physical and verbal altercation” with Sutherland at an off-campus apartment complex. The arresting officer described Sutherland as being “in an intoxicated condition in which he wasn’t totally aware of what he was and had been doing.”
“Throughout our interactions, I observed him to continuously ask repetitive questions due to forgetting he had already asked them and received answers,” the officer wrote, adding that he noted no injuries on the alleged victim.
After serving as OU’s primary placekicker the first three games of the 2019 season, Sutherland did not play in the Week 5 rout of Texas Tech. Since this post was originally published, the university has confirmed that Sutherland has been indefinitely suspended since being notified of the Title IX probe.
The 19-year-old sophomore walk-on is in his first season as Oklahoma’s starting kicker after beating out Gabe Brkic for the starting job vacated by Austin Seibert, who was selected in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns. In three games this season, Sutherland has connected on all 23 extra-point attempts and two of his four field-goal tries. Both of those makes came in the Week 3 drubbing of UCLA.
In place of Sutherland, Brkic made both field-goal attempts and all seven point-afters.