Football coaches weigh talent vs. potential for trouble

HOOVER, Ala. – The legal problems of current and former SEC players – from ex-Florida and NFL tight end Aaron Hernandez to LSU running back Jeremy Hill – cast a negative light on the league that has won seven consecutive national championships.

It also highlights the challenges – and responsibilities – facing coaches who must weigh a player’s talent vs. the potential for trouble in or out of the locker room.

The biggest spotlight by far has been on Hernandez, who’s pleaded not guilty to murder in the killing of Boston semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd.

More pertinent to the upcoming season is Hill’s uncertain status while facing a misdemeanor simple battery charge from an April 27 scuffle in a bar parking lot.

Coaches at Southeastern Conference media days this week insisted they do their best to keep players behaving, which benefits the team, the players and the men paid millions to win in a powerhouse conference with high stakes and brutal competition.

Florida’s Will Muschamp understands he can’t know what every player is doing every night away from the football building. “You also can’t stick your head in the sand and pretend everything is OK, either,” Muschamp said.

He said coaches and staff need to know who players are hanging out with off the field.

“You’re 100 percent responsible,” Muschamp said. “When you sign a student-athlete to come to the University of Florida, I look at his parents, guardians, whoever is important to him in his life, tell them it’s my job to be an extension of what’s already happened at home. But you’re 100 percent responsible for the young man. Everything that happens.”

As Alabama’s Nick Saban put it: “We can be the moral compass for our young people but we cannot always drive the ship. We cannot always be there to drive the ship.”

In the heated arms race of recruiting, coaches also bear the responsibility for signing a player who might have had off-the-field troubles.

Mississippi’s Hugh Freeze brought in one of the nation’s most surprising and highly rated talent hauls in February. Weighing risk vs. reward is a factor in recruiting decisions, he said, not just whether a kid is deemed a four- or five-star talent.

“I do think you have to be very calculated in the risk you take because you’re under such scrutiny and you’re bringing them into your team,” Freeze said. “We try to minimize the number of at-risk issues you might have, but you’re going to have some.”

Alabama dismissed four players from school following their arrests stemming from two violent robberies on campus barely a month after the Crimson Tide claimed its second straight national title.

Saban said every player he has kicked off has been someone the team’s leadership group felt needed to go.

Even the week of media days started with legal matters.

Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M pleaded guilty on Monday to a misdemeanor of not identifying himself to a police officer following a 2012 altercation at a bar near campus. That day, Vanderbilt’s James Franklin identified four players dismissed from school in June for an incident being investigated by police as a possible sex crime.

Franklin said he and Vandy won’t sign players they believe have character issues for the sake of winning.

“I can’t speak for other places or other institutions but not at Vanderbilt,” Franklin said. “It’s never been that way in the past. It’s not that way presently. It will never be in the future. That’s not what we’re all about.”

One of college football’s biggest stars, South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, said he avoids trouble caused by reckless Tweets or off-the-field misdeeds.

“I don’t go to bars,” Clowney said. “I don’t drink or anything. I just stay out of trouble, stay at home. I hang out with the same group of guys I grew up with, the same three guys every day. Just stay in the house. You can’t get in trouble in your own home, I hope.”