Might need to come down a little harder on 'em, Nick

Tennessee isn't the only SEC team making more news in the crime roundup. So is Alabama and Nick Saban (hopefully) has had enough.

I've always been a strong proponent, as the NCAA has, of players being able to do and live and have the same student experience as everyone else. But if we continue to have problems, then there may be some places that we're going to ask our players not to go. If we need to have more severe consequences in the future to change the behavior, we will do that.

-Nick Saban

Jeremy Elder was booted off the team, while linebacker Prince Hall was indefinitely suspended for that catch-all "violation of team rules" (translation: he probably failed a drug test or multiple drug tests for WEED) and won't be back for spring ball or postseason workouts.



No, football isn't better....on weed.

The key factor that explains a lot of these arrests is simple: the law of unintended consequences. The NCAA banned purely athletic dorms in 1991 and it's easy to see that arrests have skyrocketed since. I can understand the logic of mixing athletes among the student body, like Pete Carroll says here:

It’s such a stifling setting, it’s not the real college experience. They deserve the opportunity and the value of learning how to live in mixed groups.

The only problem is that when they're scattered all over, it's very difficult to watch all of them at once. And yes, they're kids and by God I know I did a lot of stupid things when I was that age. But I think this rule has had some unintended consequences.