In the ongoing saga of what off-field behavior deserves a second chance, Dan Mullen fell short of a reasonable explanation for allowing Jeffery Simmons on campus.
In today’s SEC Media Days press conferences, Dan Mullen was questioned about his decision to allow 5-star defensive end, Jeffery Simmons, to remain on the Mississippi State football team after a video emerged of him hitting a woman in May.
Mullen didn’t have a good explanation then, and he doesn’t have a good explanation now. His full remarks are nice and full of relatively meaningless platitudes about personal responsibility and the university’s investigation, but when pressed on the issue, Mullen couldn’t come up with anything and was very visibly flustered.
Dan Mullen’s full remarks on responsibility and the Jeffrey Simmons situation. pic.twitter.com/DZCIDMHJTF
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) July 12, 2016
When Kyle Tucker asked Mullen a hypothetical on how he would react if it was his wife or daughter in the same situation. Mullen’s response was, well, not good to say the least.
Finally got to ask Mullen: What if your wife or daughter? "I don't think my family would be in that situation." WHAT?!
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) July 12, 2016
Mullen dodges the question of if he'd feel the same way if it was his wife or daughter in that video. "I don't like hypotheticals."
— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) July 12, 2016
At best, this response is ignorant, ill-prepared, and dismissing. At worst, it’s completely and totally tone deaf to the situation.
Simmons would have likely been a starter for the Bulldogs if not for the paltry one-game suspension he will serve due to pending misdemeanor charges for assault.
I’m not here to be the moral arbiter of allowing football players to play amid charges, or even suggest that we need an official sliding scale of punishments for incidents off the field. But the responses from Mullen are slightly indicative of his decision being heavily focused on what Simmons can do on the field, not the way he represented himself off of it.
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