Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE been proven at this point, and the uni- versity should be praised for limiting distractions by keeping them off the field during the investigation, when it would have been easy not to. But let's not ignore the fact that through either legal or academic issues, nine Irish players — a rather distin- guished list — have missed some time with the football program since 2011 when star wide receiver Michael Floyd was arrested on campus for DUI, his third alcohol-related offense. I felt at the time that Kelly failed to deliver a strong enough message about accountability to his team when he sus- pended Floyd only for the 2011 spring football season — basically a furlough for a veteran player — and then wel- comed back his All-American with open arms in time for the regular-sea- son opener with no known additional consequence. One season later, quarterback Tommy Rees and linebacker Carlos Calabrese, both key players, were suspended for just one game after running from and threatening a police officer at an off- campus party, another missed oppor- tunity for Kelly to send a clear message about player behavior. Daniels in the spring and starting quarterback Everett Golson last fall were both given stern semester suspen- sions for different scholastic failures. And now this, four more players with Daniels trapped in football limbo as the university digs into potential wrongdo- ing. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction from the national media is always the same: "Notre Dame needs to lower its aca- demic standards" or "Notre Dame is re- cruiting players who can't handle the classwork." Neither is true. Moore graduated on schedule with his bachelor's degree in film, television and theatre, and is working toward his master's degree. Russell, a business ma- jor, served two years as student class president at Mariner High School in Everett, Wash. Daniels, a sociology major, was a solid 3.0 student at Vernon Hills High School in an affluent Chicago suburb. And Williams, a philosophy major, was a coveted recruiting target for Stanford, a rather prestigious academic univer- sity in California. Just to be admitted into Notre Dame requires one to have serious academic commitment and ap- titude in his background. The inevitable question remains whether player improprieties — per- ceived, alleged or actual — are simply individual student-athletes making bad choices, or if they're bad choices being made by student-athletes because of limited accountability within the foot- ball program. "You have to create an environment for your players on a day-to-day basis that they know you can't cut corners and they're going to be held account- able," Kelly said. "If you let players do whatever they want and they feel like they're not accountable, then I don't think you should be a head coach." ✦ Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com