Stoneburner and Mewhort have athletic scholarships removed.
ESPN.com is reporting that Jake Stoneburner and Jack Mewhort have had their athletic scholarships removed after being charged with obstruction of official police business. They pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct. Urban Meyer has stated that they will have a chance to "earn" their scholarships back after the summer. My question is simple... Is this a real punishment? Or, is this a "Hey, as long as you don't do anything else dumb you'll be in uniform game one." type of situation. Link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8059261/coach-urban-meyer-removes-scholarships-two-ohio-state-buckeyes
Haha, the ol' drunken "no, it's cool..."
I have a feeling that kid was a really fun guy to hang out with when drunk. That's hilarious.
Was that in South Bend or Ann Arbor?
Ann Arbor 2005.
Oh look, it's Urban Meyer trying to create the illusion that he's punishing kids.
As noted, very likely a combination of "good cop / bad cop" and an attempt to send a message ... within the team and outside the team.
What I wonder is whether Meyer views Stoneburner as a key part of his offense. Taking "tough" action against a third-stringer is one thing; taking it against a key first-stringer is another.
I've always liked Stoneburner -- first, I like his name; and second, I can't recall any trash-talking BS on his part ... he just seems to play the game and do it fairly well. OSU or not, I admire that.
Yuck!
I'm skepitcal of Meyer's motivations here. Saban cleared his roster with medical hardships, Meyer always seemed to trim it at Florida with "team rules violations".
Consider this, one of Meyer's top DTs (Wilson) pulled an AK-47 out of his trunk and fired it. He'd gotten into a fight at a club and fired it off to discourage the people following him from calling 911. He was allowed back on the team. Other guys were removed from the team over a little weed. The guys removed of course were buried on the two deep.
If Mewhort and Stoneburner are judged unneeded, I bet they don't make it back onto the team. If they are needed, they'll play of course. We'll see though. It's also kind of a bad punishment removing them team workouts IMHO. Suspend them for games, but keep them in the structured enviroment of the team.
That's how I see it. Unfortunately, it gives him room to move. Or are we all being too cynical? This is the guy who kicked a young Cam Newton off the team for stealing laptops. World around Florida's campus (my wife attended) was that it was not Cam's choice as he purports, but a final straw for Florida.
Course it's also the guy who supposedly let star players dictate practices over assistant coaches, per former players. My guess is they learn from the experience and find their way on the field.
Urbie knows this
Had their athletic scholarships removed and have been immediately placed on a full academic scholarship instead. This frees up 2 scholarships for Meyer's incoming class and everyone at Ohio State wins.
Please say you don't know that.
Can't be given to football players because it's an obvious way to skirt the 85 man scholarship limit.
This whole situation is ridiculous. The kids did something that tons of normal, generally law-abiding college students do. The punishment is likely a token one, but the need to even levy such a penalty seems to come from the over-attention to the tiniest misdeeds of college athletes. They urinated and public and ran from the cops. And? Would anyone care if they weren't Buckeyes? BWC tried to pull a Dukes of Hazard. And? Anyone else pays for the damage and it's a complete non-issue.
When dealing with "bad behavior" of students, the focus should be on pot-luck dorm attacks, violent assaults and the like. Coach's bad behavior (like lying about an ongoing NCAA violation, paying recruits' runners, raping young children, etc.) should fill the spotlight. Public urination? I think the spotlight has gotten way too broad if this is an issue (so says Gary Moeller).
Urbie making it seem he is being hard. They will be back come time to report for first practice. They can't be with the team basically and that's all. If they are not taking any classes in summer, they're out no money.
I hate to say it but I agree with you. I hadn't thought of this before; my initail response was that it was just a wink wink nudge thing. But now, I feel like this is tough but fair punishment by Meyer (if they hadn't run I don't think it would be as big a problem and the punishment would be unfair). Thanks for the good input and being a rational buckeye fan (I'm used to encountering the crazy bunch of fans that every team has, Michigan included).
Hey now, the phrase "rational buckeye" is trademarked. I haven't received my royalty check from you yet.
was given to me at the beginning of every term, which I'm pretty sure is standard practice (I would think it would be common sense that a college shouldn't give a student a lump sum upwards of $24000 during the first quarter). So I think they now have to pay somewhere close to $3000, depending on the number of credit hours they're enrolled in.
Also I'm pretty certain that DenverBuckeye isn't alluding that the two players won't practice at full intensity, but rather they are now barred from practicing with their teammates. Meaning, Stoneburner can't run routes with Braxton Miller nor can Mewhort develop chemistry with the rest of his relatively young O-line.
This is the truly harmful part of this punishment.
Yes, it sucks that they have to pay for the summer term now, but I don't think it's nearly as harmful as them losing the reps that they could've had with the team during the summer.
approves
He's using this to free up scholarships.
It's a roster move. Someone else is going to run the routes and do the work this summer. He's part coaching part wheeling and dealing these kids. Once on scholarship this sort of power game for such a minor infraction is classless.
I prefer the Hoke way administered through the graces of Wellman and 45 lb plates in AM workouts.
Ticket sales would be tough.
Now if you changed it to "what if all of the fans that were stupid enough to get caught urinating in public were banned", you could still fill the stadiums.
As someone above guessed, maybe Stoneburner & Mewhort are known knuckleheads that Meyer worries about. Perhaps this is his way to keep them ON the team.
whether or not they are going to be reinstated, this is more than i expected from meyer. he earned a notch of respect in my book. that puts him at notch one. i really just expected a slap on the wrist.