First of all, regarding Adrian Arrington, you might be surprised by our reaction. We are not going to allow someone who committed a crime to play on the field. As radical as it may sound to Nd fans, there are other teams out there who care about ethics.
I have not read the police report against Arrington, but I have a rough idea of what the "domestic violence" was. It was simply Arrington pulling his girlfriend out of the car. Apparently, there was a "scratch," whatever that means. She did not pursue medical attention, nor was she offered medical attention, to the best of my knowledge. The way I look at it, I can understand why they would preemptively charge Arrington or anyone else. Oftentimes in real domestic violence cases, the victim often wants to protect the aggressor, so playing it safe does make sense (though there can be an awful lot of innocent people). But here, I have a hard time believing that anything actually happened. If you're going to convict AA for this, then you might as well arrest every woman who slaps a man on the face and leaves a red mark, bruise or scratch. I don't think AA commited domestic violence.
So you're right, that charge will probably be dropped. But I do believe that he at least might have been drinking. I don't know how much. The problem is, he wasn't charged with underaged drinking and I don't think you can charge him now that his girlfriend alleges it. There were no cameras who caught AA driving while under the influence and there were no witnesses to speak of. There's no case here either.
If AA was drinking, he should consider himself lucky that the system simply didn't have enough proof to convict him. That said, I have a very very very very difficult time believing that he's the only college football player who drinks at least some alcohol. And I have a very very very very very difficult time believing that no current or former Irish players have done the same, or that the lack of punishment (he'll probably play this Sat, not that it matters), would not be implemented at Nd or elsewhere.
Regarding the rankings comment, you really have no leg to stand on. Does Rich Rodriguez worry about rankings? Of course. Bobby Petrino? Of course. But you can't publicize it. You have to keep those thought internally. Why? Simple, you don't want your players hearing this. It's a huge distraction. What happened after Tuberville complained about the difficulty of the SEC? His team lost, at home, by a wide margin, to Arkansas. Like I said, this message says to his team "we have no chance against USC, we need to be #8 with 2 losses." Why would he publicize this? If Nd wins out, there's is a zero percent chance they will be left out of a BCS game.
And another thing, Florida does deserve to be higher than Nd. Florida has beaten LSU and Tennessee. Who as Nd beaten? A Georgia Tech team that was just blown out by Clemson. Florida lost their game by 10, Nd lost by 26. At this point, Florida does deserve to be higher.
Oh, and another thing, Nd fans oftentimes think they have the smartest players. I would like to see some proof. What were the average SAT/ACT scores of all football players? Anyone?
