It had been a long, emotional week at Arkansas in November 1998. The Razorbacks were still staggered from a 28-24 loss to No. 1 Tennessee a few days earlier. Then-coach Houston Nutt was trying to get his team to lock in for a game at Mississippi State that could clinch the SEC West and a rematch with the Vols.
‘I met with the team 48 hours prior to the game — just myself and them — and I said, ‘Hey guys, let’s be in bed (early),’” Nutt recalled in a recent phone conversation with USA TODAY Sports. “Then my starting kicker goes and gets a DUI that night.”
It was the kind of scenario that has tormented college coaches for generations: A player violates a team rule, breaks a law or lands in headlines for embarrassing reasons. There’s pressure from some media and some administrators to punish the player in the name of upholding standards and sending the message that athletes don’t get preferential treatment.
And yet the coach knows that holding the player out of games as punishment could not only hurt the team’s chances of winning, but could imperil his own job.
Nutt ended up suspending the kicker, Todd Latourette, who was one of the best in the SEC that year. And without a kicker he had confidence in, Nutt passed on multiple field-goal opportunities, including one from 36 yards. Arkansas lost, 22-21, and Nutt has regretted it for a quarter-century.
“I hurt a good team,” he said. “I even had a couple seniors come to me before the game and say, ‘Hey Coach, if you let him go on the trip we’ll take responsibility and run him for you. We’ll make him throw up Sunday.’
“I’d give anything to have said, ‘That’s a great idea.’ ”
Had the same scenario happened today, though, Nutt may have had a different solution available. As high-profile college athletes increasingly earn money through the so-called booster collectives that sign players to name, image and likeness deals, the idea of fining players for misbehavior has gained traction around the college sports ecosystem.
In other words, just as college football has mimicked the NFL in terms of staffing, training, analytics and even paying players, it’s not surprising that coaches and administrations are warming to financial penalties as discipline rather than the traditional remedies like suspensions or running stadium steps.
“We think it’s effective,” said one power conference athletics director, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about how the issue might be weaponized against their school in recruiting. “We think it’s gotten (players’) attention.”
There are, of course, plenty of issues that would necessitate a more serious response than fines. An accusation of sexual assault or domestic abuse, especially when a player has been charged with a crime, such as Georgia receiver Colbie Young, should be handled by policies that remove any temptation for a school to put that player on the field while a case is pending.
But college coaches have long been mythologized as all-knowing arbiters of right and wrong, entrusted by administrations and fan bases to be father figures, mentors, protectors and — yes — judges and juries on off-field matters.
That role has not necessarily served coaches well as a profession. When an athlete messes up but continues playing, it feeds into a deep cynicism that the coach’s only interest is winning at the expense of all else. But when a coach suspends a key player and loses, will there be any credit for holding firm to principles?
Don’t count on it – not in today’s win-now culture.
“When I started, they may give you a five-year window, but that has closed,” Nutt said. “Now it’s two, maybe three at most, and you have to see results.”
There are some early indications that college coaches are, in fact, eager to rid themselves of the disciplinary burden that has long been seen as one of the most important parts of their job.
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy seemed to be one of those coaches at Big 12 media days while explaining why he didn’t suspend star running back Ollie Gordon for a drunk-driving arrest this summer.
Though Gundy also engaged in some ham-handed pretzel logic that earned backlash for appearing to minimize drunk driving, he repeatedly referenced the fact that Gordon earns NIL money and that the best decision for Oklahoma State football would be for him to play.
“We can say these guys aren’t employees, but they’re really employees,” Gundy said. “These guys get paid a lot of money, which is fine. But there needs to be a side to what they do that they have to be able to, for lack of a better term, face the music and own up to things.”
Despite failing to articulate it in a perfectly clear way, there’s a reasonable argument that Gundy is right: While Gordon may be a college student who represents a university, he’s a grown man who makes well over six figures to play football.
Are his bad choices away from the field a reflection on Gundy or Oklahoma State football? Is it reasonable to put his teammates in jeopardy of losing a game? And perhaps more starkly, how does pulling a player impact the collective responsible for paying him?
When money’s involved, it becomes a more complicated mix of agendas and incentives.
“I think the majority of coaches would say, ‘This is basically the NFL now,’ ” Nutt said. “And the bottom line is they’re getting paid money, they’re employees, so you’re going to treat them like that. What hits them isn’t so much running a stadium — though I’m sure they still do that — but it’s the pocketbook. I can see where that would be a real motivator.”
This issue has always marked the major divides between college and pro football. Nobody is going to hold Mike McDaniel accountable if a Miami Dolphins player gets arrested. Nobody would accuse John Harbaugh of having a bad locker-room culture in Baltimore if there are off-field embarrassments.
And yet that has long been the default narrative around certain coaches like Urban Meyer after a spate of ugly incidents at Florida or, now, Kirby Smart at Georgia after a string of player arrests and citations for reckless driving, speeding, racing and assault.
‘In high school, if a person messes up, it’s the parents’ fault. If a person messes up in the NFL, it’s the player’s fault. And in college, it was the coach’s fault and it probably still is because that’s the way people view it,’ said Todd Berry, the former American Football Coaches Association president and longtime college coach. ‘If you wanted behavioral change, the best way to do it was with playing time. Now that’s not really the case because (of the freedom to transfer). So I think you’re going to see some coaches handle that differently because the whole point is how do I get that behavioral change? For some it might be the money.’
Though Georgia will not talk in detail about a fine structure or how that has correlated with the number of arrests, Smart suggested at SEC media days this year that his program was moving toward that path to try and decrease the number of off-field incidents.
“I actually think the best key is the pocket because you look at what the NFL has done, their model is defined,” Smart said. “If you asked any of our players what they would rather have, they want their money. When I say substantial, it’s very substantial in terms of the hits some guys have taken.”
A less-generous reading of that comment — particularly in light of the fact that Georgia’s reckless-driving issues have persisted, even into this season with cornerback Daniel Harris’ arrest in September — would be that Smart welcomes something he can use as a deterrent for misbehavior other than suspensions that might imperil his championship aspirations.
But Smart also made clear that the fines levied by Georgia’s collective are outside his purview. Like an NFL coach, he can mostly focus on the football and leave the moral dilemmas and off-field dramas behind. After all, they’re not paying him $13 million a year to be a nanny.
“Coach (Frank) Broyles used to always tell me,’ Nutt said, referring to his athletics director and legendary Arkansas coach, ‘ ‘Houston, I really love the way your players graduate, I love the way they are involved in the community. But remember, I pay you to win.’ ‘
Follow USA TODAY columnist Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken
