Montez Sweat Bleacher Report. Interesting line in the story

One team's vice president says Michigan State is typically lenient with players like Sweat, and it takes quite a bit for a player to be dismissed there. An NFC general manager says he was told the university had multiple meetings with Sweat to try to get him straightened out.

NFL teams believe Sweat was dismissed from Michigan State because he failed tests for marijuana and was accused of stealing a bike from a rack,

NFL teams say Michigan State staff members have not disparaged Sweat. "They say he's not a thug; he just was hanging around a bad crew," the vice president says. "They said he couldn't stop smoking, so they had no choice. The people there like him. They say he's not a partier."

I found the bolded part interesting. They didn't quote an executive and it wasn't in quotes. I don't know, are we easy with kids and weed or aren't we? If we are, why did we kick those kids off? I wish they had elaborated about "lenient with players like Sweat". Jimmy Johnson always said he was way more lenient with his All Americans and All pros than he was with his walk ons and free agents. He was honest and I believe most college and pro head coaches are. Anyway, interesting story. Impressed with this young mans ability to fight through adversity and become such a great football player.

Who is Montez Sweat?

duffy munn wrote:

DWags wrote:

One team's vice president says Michigan State is typically lenient with players like Sweat, and it takes quite a bit for a player to be dismissed there. An NFC general manager says he was told the university had multiple meetings with Sweat to try to get him straightened out.

NFL teams believe Sweat was dismissed from Michigan State because he failed tests for marijuana and was accused of stealing a bike from a rack,

NFL teams say Michigan State staff members have not disparaged Sweat. "They say he's not a thug; he just was hanging around a bad crew," the vice president says. "They said he couldn't stop smoking, so they had no choice. The people there like him. They say he's not a partier."

I found the bolded part interesting. They didn't quote an executive and it wasn't in quotes. I don't know, are we easy with kids and weed or aren't we? If we are, why did we kick those kids off? I wish they had elaborated about "lenient with players like Sweat". Jimmy Johnson always said he was way more lenient with his All Americans and All pros than he was with his walk ons and free agents. He was honest and I believe most college and pro head coaches are. Anyway, interesting story. Impressed with this young mans ability to fight through adversity and become such a great football player.

Who is Montez Sweat?

Honestly I don't really think this is entirely about weed. I think it's more about insubordination. By all accounts Sweat failed multiple test and I'm sure he was given an ultimatum long before he was booted. He chose to keep doing what he was doing.

Yeah, that's sort of what I get from the rest of the part that Dwags posted. Not insubordination specifically (at least not from that article), but that they gave him multiple chances.

I think the "lenient with kids like Sweat" isn't specifically about weed, but about players who the staff feels are good kids that had bad influences or made mistakes. I think of guys like Rucker (moved his car across the street while drunk), Dion Sims (didn't his dad or step dad rope him into the laptop thing?), and the RB a couple of years ago that was waving his gun (#22, I'm blanking on his name, but we then found out that his brother was killed and he was threatened, which helps explain why he might have a gun). Possibly Bullough, too, though we don't know what happened and technically he wasn't given another chance since it was the end of his senior year.

We could probably list off some others. Except for that RB, those other three were all drafted, so it isn't surprising that an NFL guy might be referring to those situations.

Glenn Winston
Delton Williams

I trust Coach D. He has a good track record of dealing with off field issues.

steveschneider wrote:I trust Coach D. He has a good track record of dealing with off field issues.

Yep, he was pretty much correct on all of the Rather Hall kids.

Other Teams Pursuing That wrote:Glenn Winston
Delton Williams

Delton Williams is the one I was thinking of. By all accounts he was a good kid that had a bad situation all too close to home.

Winston was just piece of shit.

DWags wrote:

steveschneider wrote:I trust Coach D. He has a good track record of dealing with off field issues.

Yep, he was pretty much correct on all of the Rather Hall kids.

He rolled the dice on Winston and that was obviously a mistake but over all his track record speaks for itself. I'm also glad he gave some people second chances. It often worked out.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Other Teams Pursuing That wrote:Glenn Winston
Delton Williams

Delton Williams is the one I was thinking of. By all accounts he was a good kid that had a bad situation all too close to home.

Winston was just piece of shit.

What was the Delton Williams situation? I can't even remember.

Just refreshed my memory on Delton. Thought Coach D handled it well.

Fool me once (Glenn Winston)...

but Austin Robertson, that one still bothers me, a lot. Acknowledging of course that we don't have details that I am aware of, around either of the publicized incidents, nor his background prior to the HS incident. But as far as I know, that 2nd chance led to a teammate's girlfriend getting raped.

Here's a rundown of the Rather hall 15 from David Harns. I think it pretty much vindicates Dantonio's decisions. But it's up to the reader.

Ever since the Rather Hall incident, Mark Dantonio has been the target of constant second guessing and – from Michigan fans, primarily – ridicule and scorn. He has been accused of being “soft” on crime by allowing criminals on the team. But now is as good a time as any to look back and see the facts, not the conjecture. None of the 15 Spartan football players that were involved in the on-campus fight are on campus any longer.

Only 5 of the 15 players finished their careers in Green and White. The other 10 were either dismissed or transferred to another program. Here is a run down of the details:

11 of the players were charged with a crime.
4 were not.
Of the 11 charged:

2 were dismissed immediately from the program
5 ended up transferring to other programs
4 finished their careers as Spartans
Of the 4 that were not charged with a crime:
3 transferred to other programs
1 finished his career as a Spartan
To repeat, in total only 5 of the 15 players involved in the Rather Hall incident finished their career as Spartans while 10 players were either dismissed from the team or transferred to other programs.

4 players were present at Rather Hall but were not charged with a crime:

Nose tackle Ishmyl Johnson (transferred)
Linebacker/safety Brynden Trawick (transferred)
Wide receiver Donald Spencer (transferred)
Wide receiver Chris D. Rucker (finished as a Spartan)

Of the 11 players that were charged with crimes, the 2 most serious – and by all accounts, the 2 main participants in the fight – were:

Running back Glenn Winston
Safety Roderick Jenrette
They were dismissed from the team by Dantonio 2 days after the incident.

There were 2 other players involved in the fight that received jail time:

Nose tackle Oren Wilson was sentenced to 21 days in jail
Wide receiver Fred Smith served 4 days in jail
Both players eventually transferred to other programs.

There were 7 players who were charged with crimes and were punished with probation and community service but did not receive jail time. 3 of them transferred and 4 of them finished their careers as Spartans.
The 3 that transferred:

Running back Ashton Leggett
Defensive end Jamiihr Williams
Wide receiver Myles White
There were 4 players that were charged with minor crimes, put on probation, did community service but were reinstated to the program:

Wide receiver B.J. Cunningham
Wide receiver Mark Dell
Offensive tackle J’Michael Deane.
Cornerback Chris L. Rucker

It should seem clear that of the 5 players that ended up finishing their careers as Spartans (Dell, Cunningham, C.D. Rucker, C.L. Rucker, Deane), the only one that didn’t take full advantage of Dantonio’s generous second chance was Chris L. Rucker. He inexplicably got behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated and ended up pleading guilty to reckless driving. Since he was on probation from the Rather Hall incident, he spent 8 days in jail and was suspended from the team. You can read my account of that here.

If Chris L. Rucker had called a designated driver that night, it could have honestly been said that Dantonio dealt with the brawl in an almost perfect manner, dismissing the 2 who needed to be dismissed, finding new programs for the 8 that needed new programs, and allowing 5 players to finish their Spartan careers with a second chance. As it stands, the only blemish was Rucker’s behavior.



Honest Spartan fans can disagree with whether or not Rucker should have received the third chance that Dantonio gave him

But what can’t be disagreed with is that Mark Dantonio handled the Rather Hall brawl with the appropriate disciplinary action, doled out as only someone who knew all of the players could do. The program was held together through this trying time in large part by Kirk Cousins, who personally worked with suspended receivers Cunningham and Dell in off-campus locations. Read my report about that here.

Under weaker leadership, this incident could have set the Spartan program way back. Instead, under Dantonio’s steady hand, the Spartans won the Big Ten Championship in 2010 and made it to the inaugural Big Ten Championship Game in 2011. In addition to the actions of the players off the field, the results on the field prove that, on the whole, Dantonio made the correct decisions with his handling of the players involved in the Rather Hall brawl and that his reputation as “soft” on players who break the law is most definitely inaccurate.