Bad News Bears

Just when I was complaining that there wasn’t anything to write about last week, this last weekend happened. It was a rough one for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team, and a shocking introduction to the world of college football head coaching for Bo Pelini.

Last Saturday night offensive lineman Andy Christensen found himself in jail after sexually assaulting a 23-year-old woman at the Brass Rail in Lincoln. When the police were called to the scene Christensen made his case worse by resisting arrest and picking up a third charge by failing to comply.

The next day Pelini announced that Christensen was suspended from the team indefinitely. As the offensive lineman cooled his heels in jail, Pelini told the press that his actions “would not be tolerated.” Depending on what happens with the law at this point will determine if Pelini even gets a chance to reinstate Christensen or kick him off the team himself. The most likely of scenarios is that Christensen will find himself serving time this fall while the football team kicks off the 2008 season.

Yesterday, a bond hearing was held and was set at $500,000. Yes, you read that right. $500,000. Half a million dollars. Due to the nature of what he did, described as lifting up the woman’s skirt and penetrating forcibly with his finger(s). This is what brought the charge of the first-degree sexual assault. Right now Christensen is in very hot water. It is a very unfortunate incident with exactly two weeks to go until spring practice starts. However, now is the time for Pelini to make an example of him and remove him from the team if the law doesn’t do it for him.

As if this incident were not enough, three current players and two former players also had run ins with the law over the weekend. Obviously these violations I’m about to describe pale in comparison to Christensen’s woes, but are problems that Pelini needs to address with his team as soon as humanly possible if he hasn’t already. Just before Saturday night at a house party in Lincoln NFL hopefuls Carl Nicks and Maurice Purify were ticketed in relation to a noise complaint and arrested after they refused to vacate the house. Nicks was arrested on suspicion of being an inmate of a disorderly house and failure to disperse. Purify, who is on probation for his incident last summer, was accused of being an inmate of disorderly house. Included with this, Purify adds to his previous issues that include an assault, disturbing the peace, interrupting an arrest and a DUI.

Current player Nick Covey, who was cited with a minor in possession at a separate party the night before, was ticketed for the same thing on Saturday. Ben Martin and Mike V. Smith were also ticketed with a minor in possession violation. Smith was also ticketed in addition with maintaining a disorderly house.

Wow, how about that. It seems like players can’t help but get themselves into trouble, right? Well, I’m inclined to say that these few don’t ruin the reputation of the entire bunch, however this should in no way diminish the gravity of the situation at hand. There is definitely a problem with a certain sect of players and it needs to be address immediately. This probably isn’t the way that Pelini envisioned his first few months at Nebraska. My question is, and you’re not going to like it, is how can Pelini maintain sobriety and orderly conduct on his team when he’s been somewhat guilty of portraying a less than squeaky clean image? I know some Husker fans are ready to anoint him and his staff as the second coming, but I’ll just say that I’m reserving judgement until he A) produces results on the field and B) runs an orderly ship, so to speak.

Added to the fact that defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh will be out for spring ball with knee surgery along with corner back Anthony Blue, the past week has been filled with a lot of bad news. Apart from the arrests, couple the injuries with a portion the student section being moved to make way for 2,000 seats for non-student fans, it would seem to some like the world is out to get “Husker Nation.” Not just externally, but from within as well. Fans across the internets and some I've spoken to personally seem as split as the Red Sea that was parted by Moses, not just Dr. Tom Osborne, on the student section issue.

Hopefully once spring practice starts we’ll have some better news regarding the team. Until then in the next two weeks, I’m content with no news being good news.