University of Wisconsin reinstates WR Quintez Cephus
Cephus was Wisconsin's leading WR in 2017 as a sophomore with over 500 yards. He was dismissed from the University last year during a sexual assualt investigation but after concluding it the University has decided to re-instate Cephus.
It hasn't been announced that Cephus has returned as a member of the football team but it seems like that's where this is heading. Obviously Cephus has been away from the team for over a year and hasn't practice or played in that time so there's going to be a readjustment period for him coming back (which works from a Michigan perspective since we play them early), but this should help bolster a Wisconsin passing game that's projected to be pretty weak.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
IF this kid gets reinstated on the football, I have a really hard time thinking he will have any impact at all on our game. We play them in a month and that's not enough time for him to get back acclimated with them team and get any kind of reps with the QB.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:35 PM ^
they'll have to find a QB first.
In reality I'm sure he's still worked out and stayed vaguely close to playing shape and could have a non-zero impact on the game a month from now with a bye week in there for them.
Wisconsin last year had one guy with 500+ receiving yards, AJ Taylor at 521. Cephus went for 500 yards in 2017, so he's a significant option for whomever is throwing the ball at QB.
Any chance we can keep the discussion to the impact to the football game? Survey says probably not.
August 19th, 2019 at 1:00 PM ^
And why should we keep the discussion solely to the impact of the football game?
August 19th, 2019 at 2:34 PM ^
I wonder how vaguely close to playing shape one can be when he's totally out of the university, and no access to the nutrition and S&C equipment that they have. Especially since he was kicked out of school, involved in a trial, and was never really sure he'd be back until very recently. I would be impressed if he kept himself in near playing shape through all of that. I'd guess he's playable but months away from peak playing condition.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:13 PM ^
At this point I kind of expect, or am resigned, to this sort of thing to happen in East Lansing or Columbus (tbh)
Wisconsin tho (shrug emoji)
Maybe he's Red Locked
August 19th, 2019 at 1:46 PM ^
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
August 19th, 2019 at 1:55 PM ^
As a UM fan who lives in Madison and has followed this story, by all counts Cephus was innocent. He has already given up a year of school and football due to a bogus allegation, not to mention his reputation which your comment proves that not everyone will believe his innocence. My guess is he transfers, but we'll see. I wish him well, except when (if?) he goes up against Michigan.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:20 PM ^
Wow... feel bad for the kid then. If it was a false accusation, his career may have been ended, and at the very least was tragically altered.
August 19th, 2019 at 9:29 PM ^
Just curious how you came to the conclusion of his innocence.
August 20th, 2019 at 10:13 PM ^
The defense laid out a lot of evidence (video evidence that the accusers were not visably drunk leaving the apartment after the alleged assault -- text messages from one of the accusers with a note to Cephus that she had left her vape pen there along with a smoochie face emoji the day after the alleged incident, etc.). The jury all voted "not guilty" right away.
As for the photo taken by his roommate, Danny Davis -- Cephus admitted to lying to police about the photo. When the two women first came to his apartment and both immediately went to his bedroom he asked his Davis to take a picture because he could hardly believe it. One of the women immediately got upset and asked for the photo to be deleted. Later, after the accustions, Cephus told police that he had taken the photo (in order to leave Davis out of it). He later recanted that and admitted he was wrong to lie about it and Davis was subsequently suspended.
All of this information is easily found online. I don't know if Cephus will return to the Badger football team, but if lying to police about who took and subsequently deleted a picture is the worst thing he did, and it seems that is the case, then I feel he has already paid a price well beyond the crime.
August 19th, 2019 at 1:55 PM ^
Double post for twice the effect
August 19th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
I do not envy the UW School President who had to make that decision. No matter what, she was going to face serious blowback from one of two groups:
1) Minority leadership groups if he was barred from returning as a student (he was acquitted of all charges, regardless of what you think of him as a person) or:
2) If he was reinstated, as he has since been, sexual assault survivors and groups that support those survivors would likely come out and protest the decision.
I don't know if he really did what he was accused of. I'm guessing he's not the nicest person to be around, and may have questionable personality characteristics. But a court of law found him innocent, so he probably should be allowed to return to school.
Now whether or not he deserves to return to the football team is a different story. Obviously his teammates want it, but I'm sure the decision resides in Paul Chryst's hands. Either way, the guy has been out of the game for over a year. The odds of him being 100% game-ready by the time they play Michigan, much less by the time the season starts, are minimal.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:46 PM ^
Courts of law do not find people innocent. They find people not guilty, which doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. It just means the government couldn’t meet it’s incredibly high burden of beyond a reasonable doubt. Did he do it? I don’t know. But it’s important to clarify that he wasn’t found “innocent.”
August 19th, 2019 at 1:58 PM ^
Agreed on the 'not guilty' vs. 'found innocent' in a US legal sense, but the decision to give him the boot and then let him come back was done through the student conduct process not the US courts.
Also, for all I've read of the universities' student conduct processes, there's no 'beyond a reasonable doubt' requirement for deciding to expel the student or let him or her back in.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:26 PM ^
Just to add some balance-- being found "guilty" does not mean you did it. The inordinate number of guilty verdicts that have been overturned after the convict has spent many years in prison is evidence of that fact.
August 21st, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
you guess hes not a nice person to be around ??? thats awful presumptuous of you about him, and like some are saying being proven innocent does not mean a crime has not occurred, but there are plenty of innocent men that went down off of less worthy evidence.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
This is the just result after he was exonerated. Could make their WR corps a little bit better, but I doubt, given how long until we play them and their QB situation, that it moves the needle a ton. If the decision in his case was the correct one, then I am glad Wisconsin did the right thing here.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:39 PM ^
If the decision made by the President is not the right one and these women were assaulted, I feel horribly for them.
No man should assume that a female that is under the influence of alcohol (or is drugged) consents to sexual intercourse. That is sick.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
As we all know, the court of public opinion is much better at determining guilt than courts of law.
August 19th, 2019 at 1:04 PM ^
Not allowing a young man who is found to be not guilty to continue his degree and athletic career would also be very bad.
I don’t disagree with your latter point, and I’m not trying to make some kind of “women make these things up a lot” case. Here, however, the justice system found him to be innocent. Taking that as a given, there was only one just outcome here, which was his reinstatement.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:46 PM ^
I think it can be possible for a court to not find beyond a reasonable doubt but for a school to find a preponderance of evidence and have a result be both that a person is found not guilty in court but removed from a school and both be completely correct and justifiable outcomes.
I won't claim to know this specific instance what the details are. I have a massive problem with court cases being reported on in the news in general and don't think anyone not in that court room or who had access and takes the time to carefully go over the record themselves should be commenting on the case.
August 19th, 2019 at 2:01 PM ^
So all bar hook-ups are rape to you? FFS
August 19th, 2019 at 4:24 PM ^
Nobody actually said that, but the fact Danny Davis was suspended for whatever he did that night (he at least took a picture of one of the women without her permission) along with Cephus points to this not being merely a "bar hook-up".
Again, hyperbole on both sides doesn't help.
August 20th, 2019 at 9:17 PM ^
"No man should assume that a female that is under the influence of alcohol (or is drugged) consents to sexual intercourse. That is sick."
I guess we don't read the same.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:27 PM ^
ROFLMAO...
Ur too funny... please tell me you're not an M grad...
I can see it now, all the men on UM campus going to bars, and asking all of the women "How many drinks have you had? Are you under the influence? If so I cannot have sex with you..."
Please tell me this isn't how you approach women bud, if it is I'd be happy to coach you up!
August 19th, 2019 at 4:34 PM ^
It would perhaps shock you to learn that a decent chunk of sexual assaults occur when all parties involved have consumed alcohol. Yes, it's not "fair", I guess, that men are typically expected to request consent during a sexual encounter. But at the same time, if the roles were reversed and women could conceivably overpower a man and perform sexual acts on them against their will, my guess is you'd have a different take. But on the other hand, maybe I need to be "coached up" on how to get a girl in the sack regardless of her mental state.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:36 PM ^
Honestly, I abhor sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, and all similar conduct. However, I have known many women under the influence of alcohol or drugs who have consented to sex, including with me, when I was also under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. The question is: what may one assume; and therein lies the rub, making these cases so difficult. I hope he was PROPERLY exonerated and, if so, that he gets his life back.
August 19th, 2019 at 4:21 PM ^
I don't know what happened that night, but apparently the court system found him not guilty and, honestly, that's probably the bar schools should apply in situations like this. Unless they have ample evidence that somehow isn't admissible in court, they should probably just abide by the determination of law enforcement.
That said, Danny Davis was also apparently in that room and was suspended a couple of games for taking pictures of the two women in whatever state they were in. He didn't seem to really fight that claim, and nobody seemed all that surprised by that suspension. So part of me does wonder what actually happened with Cephus, or at the bare minimum if a line was crossed by not to the degree that the court feels was applicable to criminal proceedings.
August 20th, 2019 at 10:24 PM ^
Danny Davis was indeed suspended, and rightfully so. According to the story he took pictures of the women, who immediately got upset (also rightfully so) and asked for the pics to be deleted. After the accusation Cephus told police he had taken the pictures which he later recanted and apologized for, admitting that he was trying to keep Davis out of the situation. I suspect that Davis did not fight the suspensions because 1) he did take the pictutres and 2) his friend was in a lot of trouble and Davis knew as well as anyone that Cephus was innocent of the charges. Davis, like Cephus before him wanted to make sure that he deflected some of the fire from his roommate.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:52 PM ^
Legend has it that the real star of that family was his older brother Bo.
Sadly the guy drank whiskey by the gallon and never lived up to the hype.
August 19th, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^
That is a phenomenal joke!
August 19th, 2019 at 3:34 PM ^
Football wins > PR positioning
Apparently.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:34 PM ^
If I were him I'd transfer in search of a fresh start.
August 30th, 2019 at 9:39 PM ^
Watching this USF game, and Cephus is actually implementing himself quite well when opportunity presents itself. Wisconsin defense looks really good, the run game looks like it has not missed a beat, but that qb is definitely green, and we can take advantage