A total Nutt case in Oxford

By Bart Doan  |   Tuesday, June 16, 2009  |  Comments( 3 )

Mississippi Rebels
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As college football recruits face the increasing loss of scholarship offers because of off-the-field transgressions, the criminals and miscreants of the game can take heart in the fact that Mississippi head coach Houston Nutt will never turn them away. As everyone knows, recruiting in the Southeastern Conference is somewhat of a backstabbing bloodbath, and Nutt apparently figured that he'd go outside the box (or legal system) to upgrade his defensive backfield.

We're referring to incoming junior college transfer Jamar Hornsby, thrice arrested for offenses that would have landed a normal person in prison. Back in the spring of 2007, after playing in seven games for the Florida Gators, Hornsby ran afoul of the law for the first time; then, he supposedly slammed a man into a car and was cited with a misdemeanor for criminal mischief. In nine cases out of 10, that would send off all the red flags necessary. Then again, he was a contributor on the team, so coach Urban Meyer elected to keep him around.

Hornsby then made national news after the following season, as he was charged with first-degree theft for stealing a credit card and a felony for 70 fraudulent uses of the card. What made the story so shocking is that the card belonged to the deceased girlfriend of a former teammate who died along with her in a motorcycle accident. At that point, Meyer had had enough of Hornsby. He dismissed him from the team, where Hornsby took up shop at East Mississippi Community College.

You probably think that's the end of the story. This kid couldn't possibly do anything else and find himself on a major college football roster, could he (let alone in the same conference)? Enter Nutt. Hornsby became part of Nutt's past recruiting class, something that has to have Meyer just glowing with excitement. After getting an undue third chance, there's no way Hornsby would be on the wrong side of the law again, right? Wrong.

Hornsby will go to trial a third time on Aug. 12. This past March, he decided that he'd combine his first two transgressions. He was arrested and charged with petit larceny and felony assault for beating a man with brass knuckles stemming from a fender bender early in the morning. This latest arrest was a violation of his probation received in the credit card case. After all this, Nutt still claims that he hopes Hornsby can be on the team and part of the Ole Miss family. Nutt has said publicly that he will wait for the court's ruling before making any final decision.

By not making that final decision on Hornsby, Nutt has inadvertently given the public the ammo to make on on his own character. As rumors swirled about Nutt's extracurricular activities as head coach at Arkansas, one felt almost apologetic about his situation -- especially after Ole Miss scooped him up rapidly after his leaving Fayetteville. Now, as he embarks on his second campaign that saw him miraculously turn a previously last-place team into a Cotton Bowl winner in one season, he's willing to pull out all the stops to make sure success is retained.

Make no bones about it, Hornsby shouldn't be playing for anyone. The fact that the NCAA makes a big deal out of giving players finances (or in Alabama's case, textbooks) and turns a deaf ear to giving a multiple-incident felon a third chance shows that it's no better ethically than the coaches who will sell their souls for a few more tackles or interceptions.

Sadly, Nutt is one of those people.
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About Bart Doan

Bart has been with Realfootball365.com for about six months and thoroughly enjoys writing for the site. He has been featured for his writings on college football in The Sporting News, The Indianapolis Star, Sports Illustrated, and on CBS Sportsline.com. When he's not drowning himself in the ...
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