LSU Sports Has One of the Worst Days Ever
By Scotty Nola
While June 18 may not exactly be a day that lives in infamy, it will certainly be one to forget for LSU sports fans.
In the space of less than 24 hours, the LSU Football team had multiple arrests and suspensions from multiple off field incidents; and the LSU Baseball team was bounced from the College World Series.
The baseball game is the one that stings the most for me.
Knuckleheads getting into trouble for acting like knuckleheads isn’t something I spare much time weeping over, but LSU has so much talent on their baseball team that seeing the Tigers come up short in an elimination game against TCU was really disappointing.
The baseball bad news drowned out the disturbing reports coming from the football team, at least for a few hours.
Starting QB Anthony Jennings, talented Defensive End Maquedious Bain, and Dwayne Thomas were all arrested for burglarizing a Baton Rouge apartment to retrieve belongings Jennings believed one of the occupants had previously stolen from him a week earlier.
BREAKING: LSU QB Anthony Jennings and two other football players arrested http://t.co/yHUcXROWt0 #LSU pic.twitter.com/i6IsIAODkF
— WBRZ News (@WBRZ) June 19, 2015
They have all been suspended from the team.
It’s difficult to see how this one will play out. If it comes to light that the items they removed from the apartment they burglarized were indeed stolen from Jennings that will probably go a long way to mitigating the deed in the eyes of the public. The law might not be as forgiving.
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OJ Simpson is currently in jail for undertaking an amateur hour “sting operation” to recover sports memorabilia he believed had been stolen from him.
Turns out burglary is burglary whether the items burgled belong to you or not, and the three players were all arrested and charged with a felony.
Breaking into an apartment (twice), threatening the occupants, and removing expensive property is inexcusable whether you think the items in question may have been stolen from you or not.
Still, the players don’t have a bad track record and can at least claim that there actions were merely bad decisions that did not stem from an intent to commit an actual crime.
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Trey Lealaimatafao does not have even that tiny shred of an excuse for his actions.
The player was already on thin ice at LSU; for stealing a bicycle and seriously injuring himself punching out a glass window in the team’s weight room.
This week, the 18 year old took his mission to throw away world-class talent a step further.
According to reports after witnessing a man being beaten unconscious in a bar parking lot; Lealaimatafao, an 18 year old who was at the bar, decided to rifle through the man’s pockets while he was lying bleeding on the ground.
When the man’s girlfriend yelled at him to stop, Lealaimatafao punched her in the face.
Trey Lealaimatafao was considered a legit NFL prospect from day one, but if he turns his life around and gets back on track it won’t be as an LSU Tiger.
There is no way they will allow him back into the program after this.
Jennings, Bain, and Thomas have a lot of explaining to do, and a serious legal problem to deal with.
If they didn’t have any prior strikes against them, the three they may be back in an LSU uniform someday. But not today — they are suspended from the team.
Three LSU players are released after posting bond at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison (Photo by Heather McClelland, Baton Rouge Morning Advocate)
I hope they learn from this episode and have a chance to return.
No one wants to see three young men have their promising futures derailed over an episode of bad judgement.
Still, those futures are all very uncertain right now.
Only one thing is certain: LSU’s QB battle was just resolved. At least for right now it’s next man up time, and the next man up is Brandon Harris.
This could change again, before the season starts.
Anthony Jennings may be able to settle everything in time to return to the team for fall practice, and give us a chance for more of that patented Les Miles QB confusion.
That’s all a “maybe”, however.
The only certainty today is that Brandon Harris is both the number one QB and the only QB currently on the Tigers roster with any game experience…….