So much for clean slates
INDIANAPOLIS — By now, I’m sure all of you are aware James Cleveland and Arvell Nelson were arrested on drug charges Friday night. Honestly, I’m shocked, but not surprised, if that makes any sense at all. I’m shocked because I can’t believe the message hasn’t been sent loud and clear to football players on a team that has been in the police blotter more than any other in the country and that they would be smoking marijuana in their dorm. Seriously, how stupid do you have to be? I’m not surprised, because Nelson and Cleveland are the same guys who were posing in pictures holding large sums of cash and liquor last fall. Some people never learn, and this clearly wasn’t going to end with these guys until it ended badly.
That said, I do find a little bit of humor in sports information director Phil Haddy’s comment that Kirk Ferentz and Gary Barta couldn’t comment because they’re on the Hawkeye cruise until March 3. Is that code for “out to lunch?” I’m not quite sure at this point. These latest arrests make 18 of 14 players since last April 14th — that’s “Thug U” level, and the coach, who is 12-13 in his past two seasons and missed a bowl game last fall, just got a 1-year contract extension. Is that acceptable to you Hawkeyes fans who pay his $2.84 million annual salary? Fans want a winning team, and they’ll probably overlook a little off-field trouble if the team is winning 10 and taking them to Florida for New Year’s. But when the team is losing and the off-field embarrassments are mounting, it’s got to get a little tiresome.
What’s next? I’m assuming Cleveland and Nelson are gone, which is going to seriously hurt the Iowa offense, which was the worst in the Big Ten in 2007. Cleveland was one of the top young receivers in the conference, both at running routes, catching passes and, especially, blocking down field. He will be missed. Nelson is one of a handful of players who was expected to push Jake Christensen for the starting job. Now, that field likely will be Christensen, Ricky Stanzi and Marvin McNutt (not sure yet if any of those true freshman will figure in the mix).
Most of all, this is really disappointing. Disappointing for a team that thought it’s off-field troubles were behind it, for a coaching staff that has had a constant headache the past 10 months and a fan base that expects and deserves better.
It’ll be interesting to hear what Ferentz has to say when he comes ashore. Until then, what are your thoughts?
February 24th, 2008 at 3:26 am
It is disappointing. After Douglas, who I thought was going to be a great player for Iowa, definitely an impact player, got in trouble you know, what are we supposed to do? We all said, well that is a shame, someone will pick it up. Never happened. We keep losing our “good” players. Whether through crime as in Douglas, Bowman, and now Cleveland… or through injury as in Moweaki, Klinkenborg (mattress hands). I am not all that bothered by this incident, it more ingrains in my the sense that our recruiting process has kind of fallen off from years past. Where are the stand up kind of recruits that used to populate the ranks of the Hawkeyes? I am not saying we don’t have a whole group of great players, but every soon-to-be star has fallen off in some way, shape, or form.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I am also very disappointed in these new developments! It disappoints me that two (2) young men would not learn from the mistakes of others. The Cedar Rapids Gazette is already reporting that both have been suspended from the team. A lot of the problems have seemed to stem from the 2006 and 2007 recruiting class. Does anyone else see a correlation from Iowa’s success in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 to the off the field problems? We did not seem to have the issues with the 2 and 3 star recruits that built the Ferentz program (Sanders, Kaeding, Gallery, Greenway, Clark). We have opened the door to more 3, 4 and 5 star recruits because of our past success. I see the same things happening in other large universities. We live in Ohio and have seen multiple incidents with Ohio State over the past couple of year. We can only hope the message will get through to the remaining players.