Eugene Clifford Doesn’t Like Being a Buckeye
Who, me?Not pleased with the Wolverines taking the Fulmer Cup lead over the Buckeyes last week, defensive back Eugene Clifford got into a little trouble of his own over the holiday weekend. And by trouble, we mean punching random dudes in the face:
According to police, Clifford hit two Holy Grail employees who were trying to break up a fight early Friday at the Corryville tavern.
He’s due in court Monday morning for his arraignment on the two misdemeanor assault charges. These latest charges goes nicely with the game suspension he earned prior to the LSU game as well as the little incident this spring.
I know Tressel runs a family affair, but there comes a point in time when you’ve got to cut a guy loose. Is that time here for Clifford?
I-AA.
Jackson State!
a little off-topic, but while on the topic of “jailarity”: a familiar name’s trial starts this week.
http://www.indeonline.com/news/x833727215/Torrence-trial-may-start-end-this-week
DeVoe Torrence might carry that “sex offender” label with him for the rest of his life.
Get rid of him the buckeyes don’t need that kind of virus affecting the team. high hopes for this season. let him go and free up another scholarship for 09.
It is difficult to witness a person self-destruct. I’ll let the court decide what happened. For the sake of his family and himself, I hope there was a misunderstanding.
Mark this as one of the most promising young DB’s coming into a program and expecting everything to be handed to him. He blew a shot at the NFL b/c every buckeye defensive back gets a chance…. see Gary Berry and Donny Nickey. It’s too bad he could have been great and now he will go the way of Haw, and Henton.
Time to cut the purse strings… this kid needs some tough love– and cutting this guy loose gives OSU another scholarship to use on a kid who can help himself to succeed and to help the team.
You know, Clifford doesn’t impress me at all in practice. As highly-touted as he was, I expected something along the lines of a Dustin Fox, or a Ted Ginn (who played some hellaciously good DB early in practice). Clifford is athletic, but doesn’t close well, and doesn’t go hard when it’s needed. He’s just sort of “there,” and neither greatly disappoints, or greatly impresses.
He reminds me of so many other praised high schoolers who come to OSU and disappear. Jefferson Kelly, Corey Pargo, etc.
If Tressel doesn’t cut him loose outright, he’ll only appear on the field as a dime player, and you’ll only see him his senior season, in mop-up duty. That’s just the way this ship is run these days.
Revoking a players scholarship is a major decision. He would lose his right to a free, world-class education and also ensure that his road to the NFL would be somewhere between unlikely and impossible. I can see Tressel’s reluctance to do this to the players that he cares so much for and think a big part of him takes it as a failure on his part to live up to his promise to the parents to watch after the kid while they are under his charge.
All that being said, Clifford should be given nothing more than a kick in the ass as he’s pushed out of the door of the WHAC. Kids make mistakes but this guy is way past the “innocent mistake” point in his life. We all know a guy that made many questionable decisions in his brief career as a Buckeye and I don’t think we’re anxious to see the redux version.
clifford should be done, i was surprised he was still on the team after his incident in the spring. he clearly has made no effort to change his behavior and has wasted both his own time and the team’s time.
time to let him go
EC is just a kid who is prone to do stupid things, as we all did at this age. Being a scholarship athlete at tOSU is an honor and must be treated as such. What is the big question here? Does Coach T dismiss this young man for questionable character, smoking weed or fighting? Seriously, how many of you have done that or worse? How many of you have ever stepped on a D1 football field and competed at this level? Do you know what it takes to play D1 FB. I am pretty sure the tOSU coaches are not recruiting kids to field a choir or debate team? Call him a thug or degenerate or whatever descriptor you choose but remember this, SECOND SUCKS!
@ BuckeyeNTexas
The difference is that I wasn’t on scholarship for OSU when I did those things. A school giving them a full ride and asking them only to be football players and not to do drugs/get into fights isn’t asking much in return.
You sound a bit like a choir boy when you talk that way. That is a double standard any way you look at it. Was it any more or less infraction when you did it. We are not voting for EC for president or allowing him to do open heart surgery, we are talking about a football player who has made his share of bad choices. The difference is that you put expectations on the athletes that you wouldn’t put on yourself. If you expect the student-athletes to act a certain way then all students should be held to the same high standards. Not going to happen’ this is reality.
Hell yes it’s a double standard. The people that are paying out of their own pocket to go to school definitely have a lot more freedom to do whatever they want because their actions on the weekend don’t really have any bearing on OSU. Go to campus during the year and chances are you’ll see some student getting in trouble with the law. Think that makes the Dayton Daily News? When an OSU football player does it, it looks bad for the team and University. And while I never played for OSU, I’m sure this is communicated to the players. OSU has the right to punish these players because they are basically paying for them to be there.
I’m far from a choir boy, but your you can bet your mortgage that I would have been if I would have been scholarship player for OSU. Your win first attitude is exactly what gives OSU a bad national reputation. And if you think it’s the attitude of Jim Tressel or Gene Smith go ask John Cooper how that worked out for him.
“The difference is that you put expectations on the athletes that you wouldn’t put on yourself.”
Bullshit. Speak for yourself. And as far as I’m concerned, being a choir boy is a compliment, not a derogatory term. Your comments show me just how far society has fallen.
The expectations are applied to each and every one of these kids. As a matter of fact, they’re applied to everyone in every walk of life. There are a few who constantly break the rules, and there are many who don’t. Reward the ones that follow the rules and jettison the ones that don’t. That’s the way life is as a Buckeye football player, as a professional athlete, or a professional in the workforce.
Suck it up or be a bum. Either way, EC made his choice, and he’s going to have to live with the consequences of his actions. Period.
Bottom line is there should not be a place in this program for players like Eugene Clifford. If it came out that beanie wells or even terelle pryor were smoking it up on the weekend, and getting into fights I would have the same attitude. Anyway as an avid smoker I dont see how it does anything to help your athletic skills so if for nothing else stop to better yourself as a player. And to the guy that says we should treat players the same as students…a big Bullshit on that one…I know that if I get arrested during the time I am at OSU my parents are not only whooping my ass but making me move back home because they pay for my college tuition and in turn control me. OSU pays EC’s tuition and in turn control him and can kick him off the team for whatever they feel like it.
While personally I’m a little more forgiving of the weed offenses (as Kyle pointed out, it’s not exactly performance-enhancing), the punching of random people in the face is pretty serious, especially when he already had the two strikes.
He’s gotta go.
For the record, I don’t think weed is a big deal either. However, I do worry about the mental capacity of those who aren’t able to smoke it without getting caught.
I don’t know Clifford’s situation, so it may not be entirely applicable, but there’s a good (and quite serious) post up at edsbs.com today about the big gray areas that are second chances. Don’t know if it applies here or not, but it’s interesting in general.
in most cases i don’t think weed is a big deal, but if you know they’re going to test for it and you know that you’re going to be in a world of shit if you test positive, it takes a special kind of idiot to say “yeah the hell with it, pass me that j”
EC was on Ohio State’s tab, and by being a constant screwup he’s revoked his right to stay on that tab.
i mean, shit, we don’t expect these kids to be saints but the reality of the situation is that playing football at Ohio State means having to deal with an extremely high level of public scrutiny and attention. if you can’t handle that without making an ass of yourself, then you probably shouldn’t be on the team.
i’m just glad we have guys like beanie wells and JL who seem to be able to deal with everything in stride.
also glazed, i don’t know EC’s personal situation, but this isn’t an isolated incident. dude’s been in the doghouse for some time now, and sometimes not giving someone yet another chance is the best thing for them. working his ass off at a D-IAA school that can’t afford to give him a scholarship might show him just how much he gave up
We just picked up another commit:
http://dottingthei.com/index.php/longo-makes-it-24/
Cut him loose. Don’t attempt to rationalize or apologize for it - that’s why we’re the laughing stock of the Big 10 outside of PSU when it comes to player conduct.
Also, the Longo commitment worries me. We’ve taken commitments from a lot of “meh” recruits lately - McDonald, Fragel, Boren, Bellamy and now Longo and we’re losing spots for guys we really want and need like Berry, Watt and Hall. I hope we’ve got 4-5 spots left for the gems of this class.
Tom Blogical wrote:
“And as far as I’m concerned, being a choir boy is a compliment, not a derogatory term. Your comments show me just how far society has fallen.”
Boy, is that the truth.
poguemahone,
JL, Malcolm Jenkins, Anderson Russell, and AJ Hawk scoff at your comments.
From what I understand, Jaamal Berry, Chris Watt, Marcus Hall and Corey Adams all have spots saved. Watt’s decision is forthcoming and could go either way (seemingly Notre Dame v. Ohio State at the moment), and Hall, Berry and Adams look to draw out their recruitments and methinks we’ll get Hall and Berry but lose out on Adams (probably going to stay in the Pac 10). The benefit of having a class solidified before the season starts is that the assistant coaches will only be dealing with 4 recruits on the board, as opposed to most other programs who will have to furiously put together a recruiting class while working on the regular season at hand. Really, most of the recruiting work done for this season will be awarding the verbals with their official visits during the regular season. Basically: clerical stuff.
My policy is that the staff easily knows more about these players than someone like me. Who knew those commitments from 2-star Robo, 3-star Laurinaitis, 2-star Donald Washington, 3-star Chimdi Chekwa (whose other offers were from the likes of FIU and FAU), 3-star Malcolm Jenkins, 2-star Anderson Russell (a tailback in a Notre Dame Box offense in HS, if memory serves correctly) and 3-star God-ordained killing machine Brian Hartline would be paying such dividends? It looks like players like Emilien and McGee are on the outside looking in at the moment, but the staff probably doesn’t see much of a difference between a McDougald and an Emilien. Ultimately, I loved Emilien’s enthusiasm at the Spring Game, but I would agree with that assessment. When in doubt, trust the coaches.
I don’t deny that JT has found quite a few diamonds in the rough (though I think none of those players aside from Hawk are as good as people believe them to be, but that’s a discussion for another). My problem is, I don’t like middle-loaded classes with a bunch of contributors and okay college players that becomes massively overrated due to the large amount of average guys with potential all-timers like Fellows, Simon and Bell on top. Miami did this last year where Arthur Brown and a couple other future all-Americans topped off an otherwise-average-to-mediocre recruiting class that included 18 three-star afterthoughts, most in the top 25 for any one class.
Recruiting is risky bidness. For every Malcolm Jenkins and James Lauriniatis, there are massive disappointments like Jamario O’Neal and guys who simply don’t live up to the hype like Alex Boone. That being said, the last time I remember taking this many guys who I frankly hadn’t even heard of until they committed was 2003 - the class that time forgot. Remember these names? Louis Irrizary, Brandon Maupin, Marcel Frost, Ira Guilford? Granted, that class had legends in Anthony Gonzales and Donte Whitner and three solid contributors in Kirk Barton, Ashton Youboty and David Patterson, but all of those flameouts led to a dearth of senior leadership on last year’s team and to a lesser extent the year before. We aren’t recruiting nobodies, but I hope we aren’t skipping out on top talent because we think we see the same talent and ability in Ohio guys who’re easier to get because they grew up dreaming of wearing the Scarlet and Gray.
“Recruiting is risky bidness.”
Exactly.
Your argument is pointless. You just said that there are “massive disappointments and guys that don’t live up to the hype”. I expect that you have sat down and studied every player in the nation and concluded the ones we have are “meh” recruits, but I’d still take the players the staff offers. Your ’solid contributor’ Ashton Youboty was a third round NFL draft pick.
We’d all like to have 2004 USC’s or 2001 Miami’s teams, but its hard to say that we don’t. This isn’t NCAA College Football 2008 where you get every 5 star recruit and every 5 star recruit pans out. Calling certain player ‘overrated’ is a risky thing to do on a Buckeye blog, especially when those players have only lost to 3 national champions and 2 BCS bowl teams in the past 3 years.
Sit down, take a break, and e-mail me in 4-5 years.
You guys are gay and don’t know anything about talent evaluation.
The argument isn’t pointless. We’re giving out schollies like candy to kids who are entertaining offers from Little Brother Up North, Minny, every MAC team and - out of nowhere - us - one of the top 5 programs in the country. Do you want a recruiting class who is 70 percent potential sleepers?
As far as the “overrated”-ness of those three players, please point out one great team (outside of marginally-great ‘06 Michigan) that they had a serious hand in actually BEATING the last 2-3 years. You can’t say a team or its players are great because they lose to great teams and players, especially when they get thumped the way they did by the last two elite teams they’ve played - that’s just lunacy.
Also, has Youboty done anything in the NFL? I don’t remember much out of him in ‘05 aside from the blocked punt against MSU. He was okay in his playing days, and I think he was drafted off of potential and an above-average Combine.
“You guys are gay and don’t know anything about talent evaluation.”
I hope you’re not an OSU assistant coach.
” ‘You guys are gay and don’t know anything about talent evaluation.’
I hope you’re not an OSU assistant coach.”
Nah, this looks more like JayPa sneaked onto the board again…
poguemahone,
are you aware that you are criticizing kids that haven’t even played their senior year of high school yet?
just making sure.
Are you aware tha out that we, as CFB fans second guess “the split-second decisions of college kids under extreme physical duress” daily, as SMQ so eloquently put it? I’m not criticizing them as people - I’ve never met any of them and have a somewhat-shaken belief that Tressel usually only offers high-character guys. What I AM doing is wondering if they belong on the roster of a team who’s still trying to prove it’s a college football powerhouse and not the Boise State of an eastern WAC with 100 times the tradition.
weak.
Time to get rid of him. No “third chances.” He’s proven he’s not worthy to wear the scarlet and gray.
Good riddance to all you hypocritical Buckeye fans Eugene will succeed at Tennesse State and eventually play on Sundays Something you know nothing jerks will never sniff unless you buy a ticket
Clifford may indeed succeed at TSU…but why the crazy, periodless, rant on hypocritical fans and their lack of NFL talent. Dave, I wish you all the best in the NFL this year…right, you are cruising message boards, not attending OTA’s. One quick note, telling people on blogs that they will not make it in the NFL isn’t exaclty pissing in their cheerios…I have a feeling most people have come to grips with that concept.
Clifford has talent to be sure, he also has a serious motivation problem. A motivated player wouldn’t have squandered their chance multiple times. If he does make the NFL, it means he actually puts his talent into gear and focuses on football, something he clearly did not do in Columbus.