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Originally posted by JayRock
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Yeah I'm a little worried about this honestly.......... -
If you haven't taken a look at the position features on und.com, I suggest giving those a view.
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Defensive LineComment
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Excellent take on the Floyd situation from Her Loyal Sons.
I didn’t really want to post about Michael Floyd again. It’s been the story of the offseason, but at some point it just becomes too much. But my reluctance/silence wasn’t going to get across the point of my reluctance/silence, which is this: we don’t know, and we should all slow down.
Much like the coaching search, we don’t know much here. So, to me, it’s really tough to make any kind of call about whether this is good, bad, better, worse, or the same.
What do we know? We know that Res Life appears to be taking a more reserved approach to dishing out punishment. While students and players in the past would be dismissed from school for a semester (and banned from sports concurrently), now Res Life seems to be focused more on keeping the student in school and providing ongoing programs for getting things fixed. Community Service, Treatment, Planning.
Some see this as the watering down of Notre Dame’s standards. Some see it as a right-sizing – getting punishments in line with crimes. I honestly don’t know which it is, because the story isn’t complete. We don’t know what Floyd has been up to since his arrest. We don’t know what Res Life has or hasn’t perscribed, and we don’t know what will come down from the Courts or Coach Kelly.
Michael Floyd has three hurdles to get over before he can even think of playing football again. He has gotten through one of them, Res Life. He still has 2 huge hurdles to go. Before we get to those two, here are my thoughts on Floyd’s Res Life situation:
This wasn’t an exception.
This isn’t some great compassion coming from Res Life, all designed to get Floyd back on the field. This was an interpretation of the rules that led to a non-suspension from school. Let’s go back to my post on Res Life’s rules in Du Lac around DUI. In that post, I wrote:
Reviewing Du Lac, ND’s Student Handbook, we find on page 114 the outline for a 2nd DUI offense:
“Second offense: If a student is determined to have violated this policy and it is a second offense as described above, the Office of Residence Life and Housing will: 1. Separate the student from the University for at least one academic semester.”
Michael qualifies as a second offense because of his prior alcohol violations – he has a previous violation of the intoxication policy + a DUI violation. Let’s make that clear: Floyd does NOT have 2 DUI’s, he only has 1. But because he has had previous issues involving alcohol, it reads like the school may consider this a second violation and hand out punishment accordingly. This means suspension til the summer, or possibly through the summer. They could also rule that since Spring Semester is partially over, that he has to serve the suspension in the Fall. That means no school, and no football. Total separation. All of these are possible.
At the time, I thought that Res Life could qualify Michael’s DUI as a second offense because of his prior off-campus arrests that involved alcohol. But if you look at the Du Lac language closely, it focuses on violations of the “Intoxication Policy” and not the “Alcohol Policy”. Going back and looking at the 2 previous infractions, Mike was in the wrong place at the wrong time – at parties with alcohol while he was <21. BUT, from what I can find, he was not charged with being intoxicated, public drunkenness, or the like. So, my guess is that Res Life reviewed those past infractions, ruled that Mike is not a second-offender based on the intoxication and DUI policy, and meted out the appropriate punishment for a first-offense DUI. In Du Lac, the punishment for a first offense is as follows:
I. Violations and Sanctions
a. First offense: If a student is determined to have violated
this policy, the Office of Residence Life and Housing will:
1. Place the student on Disciplinary Probation for at
least one semester.
2. Require the student to participate in an alcohol
assessment at an appropriate assessing agency and
undertake alcohol education according to the
assessor’s determination.
3. Require the student to forfeit all University vehicle
registration and campus driving/parking privileges
for at least one semester.
4. Require the student to pay an appropriate monetary
fine or perform equivalent community service.
So, it seems to me that Res Life hasn’t undergone some major shift in terms of what they do: they assess a case and apply the rules of Du Lac. The key difference may be in nuanced interpretation (e.g. first offense vs second) or just style and intent. We don’t really know. But while some are praising this move as a huge, “awesome” shift where ND Res Life is now ‘on the side of football’, and others decry it for the same reason, I think that’s all premature. It seems to me that the leadership of Res Life may be a bit more forgiving based on the few public examples we’ve seen regarding football since the shift at the top. But ultimately it may just come down to the way this group reads the rulebook, interprets it, and enforces. Not as sexy of a story, but my guess is that this is more likely the case than a conspiracy to help football players, or a watering down of standards.
The rules in the book haven’t changed. Not one bit.
So what do I think? I think Res Life could have gone either way with their interpretation, and I think the previous leadership there would have booted Mike from school for the Spring, and maybe Summer. I think the new team in charge took a different, but no less appropriate course, based on the rules. But either way, Floyd would likely have been back for the Fall.
I also think that Res Life is finally realizing that sports isn’t their domain. They handle presence at the institution overall, and enforcement of rules along those lines. The coach (of any sport) will handle discipline within that program. That is how it should be. Athletes should be treated as any other student by Res Life, and get their extra nudge in the right direction from the coach, as the coach sees fit.
Which brings us back to those other 2 hurdles.
Everyone assumed that Mike was cleared to play ball once Res Life finished their process and did not boot him from campus. But everyone was conveniently skipping the last 2 hurdles. First, there’s the legal hurdle. Floyd has to get through that process, and who knows what it will bring? Precedent for a first-offense DUI would lead us to think that the legal ramifications won’t impact his ability to play in the Fall, but we don’t know until we know. That hurdle should be crossed by mid-May.
Then there’s the Coach, and Brian Kelly has made it pretty clear that there are no guarantees. And I don’t think this is lip service. Duval Kamara, who would have started in the game, didn’t make the trip to the Sun Bowl. Floyd lost his captaincy and was immediately kicked off the team upon his arrest for DUI. He remains off the team, and it appears that he will not be a part of the team until Kelly is happy with his progress.
Kelly isn’t yet sure what his punishment for Floyd will be. He said earlier that he would wait for Res Life and The Liz-aw to complete their processes before determining what the repercussions are from the team POV. Make no mistake, Floyd let himself and many others down, including Coach Kelly. I don’t expect the punishment to be insignificant. In a recent quote, Kelly mentioned, 1, 2, 3 or 4 games. It could be any of those. No doubt, those that want ND to become that football factory will say that any suspension is too much. And those that hate ND, or are sanctimonious as hell, will say that even a 4-game suspension isn’t enough. The balance likely lies somewhere between. My guess? We won’t see MF vs South Florida. And possibly against UM.
To those that hate Notre Dame and claim that this is a hallmark shift that makes ND ‘like everyone else’ or a ‘football factory’ I say this: Floyd lost his captaincy, is off the team, and has no guarantees. He is jumping through some MAJOR hoops to get back in good graces, and will likely miss games because of an offense that happened ~6 months before the season starts. At other programs, he’d have missed 1 half of 1 game against a nobody opponent, and that’s only if the offense happened within a month of kickoff. Same situation AND timing at another school? A player would miss a few practices and then everyone moves on. So, hmmmmmm, pretty much the same? Not at all.
To those extremely happy about the result because they just want Floyd on the field regardless: That’s not the Notre Dame way. Be happy because you think this is this best thing for Mike Floyd. Be happy because you think this is going to help the young man be better in the future. Be happy because you think students and athletes will be treated more fairly by this new incarnation of res life, and will make better decisions in the future because of this new approach. But please don’t be happy because you think Floyd ‘got off’. He’s not getting off – he’s paying for this in a ton of ways and I’m sure he’s miserable because of it. And if he did somehow get off, I would hope that ND fans wouldn’t rejoice. While we can all weigh in on what the right approach is, I hope that we all have the same goal in mind: win games with great players that graduate and represent our university well both on and off the field. If you’re cheering for only one part of the above, I think you’re missing what ND is all about.
Go Irish. Be Good. Be Reasonable. Win.Comment
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Just a reminder about the spring game being on Versus tomorrow at 2pm.(EDT)Comment
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Yeah saw it but went out and had beer.
Great pick ups.
Impressions from Spring game:
Aaron Lynch is awesome.
Louis Nix III is a beast and ate a walk on RB.
Golson is Pat White Version 2.0
Brian Kelly is hilarious. To Toma: "You're not fast, you're not tall, that hair cut is bad. Catch the ball"
Predictions for this season: 20-0 and 3 NC'sComment
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Tried to watch this on und.com, but the quality of the Versus stream was terrible. Haven't been able to find a download yet.Comment
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Sullivan Investigation Released....
Really in depth....
In the end you come away reading about a freak and tragic accident.Comment
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