Former Michigan DE Frank Clark starts combine poorly

Ex-Michigan defensive end Frank Clark didn’t do himself any favors during his press conference at the NFL combine Friday.

Former Michigan defensive end Frank Clark was arrested Nov. 15 after police were called to a waterpark in Sandusky, Ohio, over reports of a domestic dispute.

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Frank Clark grabbed his girlfriend “by the neck and slammed her to the ground” in view of some of her family members according to a police report of the incident.

Clark was arrested, spent two nights in an Erie County jail and was kicked off the Michigan football team two days later by Brady Hoke.

Now, Clark is trying to move past the incident and hopefully be drafted into the NFL. The 21-year-old 6’2-273 pound defensive end shows great athleticism and tackle ability, but this is overshadowed by his criminal history. Clark now faces a high probability of not getting drafted after he once was projected as a prime mid-round draft pick.

Clark started on a bad foot at the combine by saying some things that may be construed as victim blaming.

When asked about the incident, Clark had this to say:

“I don’t want to get into too much detail,” Clark said. “The detail I did get into I did with NFL teams. When we were in the room, the person involved let something get out of hand and took something further than what it was planned.

“You look at a phone and nowadays these phones get a lot of people in trouble. I’m not saying I’m a womanizer or anything of that nature. I’m just saying it was a confrontation between me and one of my friends and the woman involved took it to another level that it shouldn’t have been taken to.

“That’s fine. I’m not throwing her under the bus. I’m not saying she did anything wrong. I’m just saying that a lot of things that happened in that room that night could have been avoided.”

This won’t look good whatsoever to NFL teams, especially in a league where domestic violence issues have erupted in 2014 between Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Greg Hardy among many others.

Clark, who faces misdemeanor counts of domestic violence and assault, had a pretrial hearing in his case slated for today rescheduled, according to the Detroit Free Press.

This isn’t the first crime that Clark, who had 42 tackles and five sacks for Michigan last year, has committed. He was arrested for stealing a laptop from a floormate in his campus dorm as a freshman at Michigan. The resulting felony charge of second-degree home invasion was cleared after one year of probation, but his criminal history is now built up going into the draft.

Clark will need to do a lot of good if he wants to prove to NFL teams that he’s done with his off-field issues.

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