Colin Cowherd said what?

Anyone know if this is true?

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He could have been sarcastic, right? I remember Jim Rome sarcastically praising a Missouri player's arrest as a sign Mizzou finally had a big-time program.

 

I don't doubt he said it, since it sounds exactly like something he would say. The fact that we're not sure whether he was joking or being serious indicates the regard in which he is currently held.

 

Joking? Serious? Who cares? It's Blowhard Cowherd.

 

When Oregon State finally got good in football it was preceded by a couple of minor arrests for fights at parties. I'm not saying it's good for the program, but the Beavers had been choir boys for about 25 years and they sucked. You have a few guys that are more territorial and aggressive off the field and they tend to be that way on the field as well.

 

The real news here, of course, is that someone actually listened to the imbecile Cowherd.

 

Well, at least in exchange for the millions and millions and millions of dollars they're paying Saban, they're getting fine upstanding citizens to go along with their stratospheric winning percentage.

 

If criminals-per-capita is directly proportional to winning percentage, there must be one hell of a wait list for a jail cell in Monroe, La.

 

Best two jokes I've heard about Johns' unfortunate situation.

1. The University of Alabama is changing to Pepsi because the school has a Coke problem.
2. Johns' deals just outside the football complex confirm that he was simply trying to help pay Saban's salary.

 

Cowherd has said similar things in the past. His reasoning is that you need thugs to win because those are more athletic (read black). He cites Penn St. Paterno for years would go after only high-caliber student-athletes. In the late 90s, 2000s they had a rough stretch.. Now that they have loosened their standards somwhat they are good again. Not saying I agree with it, that's just his reasoning.

 

I took it as sarcasm in regards to college athletics and criminal activity. I heard the whole thing and I laughed. Not that I assume he thinks it's true, but I could hear the sarcasm in his voice.

Sixteen Iowa football players were arrested over a 16-month span for stuff ranging from sexual assault to petty theft to taking a leak in front of a bar on the Ped Mall.

And yet, Iowa finished 6-6 and 6-7 over the last two seasons.

 

You can go around the country and find examples of schools that built programs with questionable character guys that were amazing football players.

Florida State won a national title with Peter Warrick as its top player. John L. Smith took the University of Louisville football program from 1-10 in Ron Cooper's final season to back-to-back C-USA championships with guys that were somewhat questionable off the field or had been academic casualties at bigger schools.

Bobby Petrino's defense on his best Louisville teams was anchored by Nate Harris, a Miami signee who was released from his scholarship after an armed robbery charge. Hell, even Miami was built off of cocky assholes who weren't exactly choir boys in the 80s.

The difference is the coach. At Louisville, Smith could only take those players so far because he couldn't keep them in check on the field. His teams were annually among the most penalized in the country. Petrino, on the other hand, got the "troubled" kids to harness that negative energy, so to speak, and put it all toward football.

I'm not saying having felons on the team is the key to success, but a lot of smaller programs (like Louisville before its jump to the Big East) and those that aren't rich in football history (like aforementioned Oregon State) are forced to take gambles on some kids that the big schools don't want if they want to build a program. Some of those kids just slip through the cracks and some of them aren't recruited by major programs because of off field problems.

And I'd be willing to bet that for every player who screws up there are four or five Nate Harris', guys that had similar questions or slip-ups but were given a chance and kept their noses clean for their entire college careers.