FSU’s Reputation Continues to Digress

Jimbo

In the span of one week, we have seen (allegedly) two Florida State University football players being involved in a conflict with a woman. And by conflict, I mean, striking a woman straight in the face multiple times. This is obviously not good to ever hear this kind of news, regardless of who and where it was. Backup quarterback DeAndre Johnson’s situation was awful, because not only did he drill a woman straight in the face, but it was also caught on video for the entire world to see. Shortly after news broke out, Jimbo Fisher made a pretty easy call by dismissing Johnson from the FSU  football program. It’s not like this was a difficult decision for Fisher though, so let’s not go out and start praising him for making a decision every single coach in the country would have made. This debacle happened on video, and it’s not like Johnson was ever going to see the field anytime soon, so it was indeed a simple call.

The other situation (allegedly) involved star running back Dalvin Cook. Now this becomes a very interesting situation for Coach Jimbo Fisher. Cook is arguably the best returning starter on offense, as he led the Seminoles in rushing last year as a true freshmen. This will be extremely intriguing to see what Fisher does with disciplining Cook. He decided yesterday to suspend him from workouts with the team indefinitely.

Before we do jump to conclusions and start pointing the guilty finger at Dalvin Cook (ESPN), I am actually going to give Cook the benefit of the doubt until he is proven guilty. Now obviously, if Cook did indeed hit the woman multiple times, he should be kicked off the team. I do not think anyone is disregarding this. The interesting thing regarding this case though, is that it took place eighteen days ago from today, and still no charges have been filed. However, there has been a warrant issued for the arrest of Dalvin Cook from the Tallahassee Police Department.

The only problem that I do have with this entire situation, is that all of the media outlets are posting this story everywhere. I do not know about you, but technically this kid is still innocent! I mean even if this case is completely true, it is still to early to start posting a story about a kid who will have to live with the name tag “woman beater” for the rest of his life, especially if he did not actually do it. I find it funny how on ESPN we do not see any stories about other players getting arrested from other conferences (SEC), but once anything is reported about a FSU player it is on the front page.

Seriously though, how can all of this news break in one week? One week? Come on Jimbo! Take control of your program for crying out loud. We all know you are one of the best coaches in college football, but over the past two years FSU’s reputation as a university has taken a serious hit. Most people consider FSU’s discipline program to be a joke, and laughed at the entire Jameis Winston situation as it unfolded. Depending on the ultimate outcome of the situation, we will see everything that we really need to ever know about Jimbo Fisher. If Cook is guilty, he should be gone, and if Fisher only suspends him for Texas State and Chattanooga, well then, I guess everyone out there is right about Jimbo Fisher.

So I only have one question and one question only for Coach Fisher: Will the real Jimbo Fisher please stand up? Obviously something in the program’s culture needs to change quickly. Winning is not everything, and hopefully this situation gets resolved in a timely and proper manner.

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