There's very much doubt. Very much.
Prister is a quality analyst, but we have zero information on what happened with Austin. We do know that Stepherson was arrested before in 2016, then followed that up with another incident (resulting in the unofficial 4 game suspension).
Austin very well may have had a similar run-in, but his issues didn't stem from an arrest, which caused ND public embarrassment. This, combined with what followed makes the comparisons to Stepherson disingenuous.
Austin's involvement has been severely limited, so it's easy to assume he'll be out for a few games. However, unlike Stepherson, Austin is still being somewhat involved and was involved in spring. Stepherson got essentially zero reps in the spring and fall of 2017.
I don't really care what Prister is speculating about. It is just that. Speculation. Pretty much all of ISD don't compare him to Stepherson at all, but are tempering their expectations on him. It's semantics at this point, whether he ends up like Williams or Stepherson. He's clearly not a no-show, or else he wouldn't have been "starving" by Balis standards, so that's something. It's up to him whether he ends up more like Dexter or more like Stepherson, because how those two responded were the key difference. Based on what's been discussed over the offseason, I have no reason to believe he will go down the Stepherson path.
