A sad story came out of Baton Rouge today, as four former LSU football players, including former Heisman finalist Tyrann Mathieu and last year’s starting quarterback Jordan Jefferson were arrested on marijuana related charges.
This, via WAFB in Baton Rouge:
Jordan Jefferson, Tyrann Mathieu, Karnell Hatcher, and Derrick Bryant were all charged with marijuana-related offenses, police said.
WAFB's Jim Shannon and Kiran Chawla first reported the arrests at 5pm Thursday, quoting law enforcement sources.
Mathieu and Jefferson were charged with Simple Possession of Marijuana, Hatcher was charged with 2nd Offense Simple Possession of Marijuana and Bryant was charged with Possession With Intent to Distribute Marijuana, Baton Rouge police later confirmed. All four men will be booked into to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.
The incident occurred at the apartment of Mathieu, who is currently enrolled as a student at LSU, but was kicked off the football team in August. It has been rumored that he was Mathieu was removed from the team because of failed drug tests.
Here are more details via WAFB:
At approximately 3:30pm Thursday, officers were dispatched to an apartment at 262 West State in Baton Rouge in reference to a complaint about a man attempting to force his way in to the complex through a security gate, police said. According to police news release: The man was confronted by a maintenance worker and words were exchanged. Before officers arrived the man had been let into the complex by a resident and was seen going into an apartment. When officers went to the apartment and knocked on the door it was answered by the resident, Tyrann Mathieu, age 20, police said.
“Officers immediately smelled a strong odor of marijuana and obtained consent from Mathieu to search the apartment”, a police news release said. “Inside they found three other men, including the one who had allegedly tried to force his way through the gate. He was identified as Jordan Jefferson,” police said. Police said the other two men were identified as Bryant and Hatcher.
Now, in the micro it’d be easy to blow off this story as nothing more than young kids smoking a little bit of weed to take the edge off after a long day. And in a lot of ways, it is. After all, this incident could’ve and does happen on every college campus of every university across the country. This specific case just happens to deal with high-profile football players.
At the same time, there are a few things that are concerning.
For starters, it isn’t clear why Hatcher, Jefferson and Bryant were even on campus to begin with, given that none of them play for the football team, and as best we can tell, none of them are enrolled in classes at LSU either. Mathieu- at the very least- is enrolled in school, even if he isn’t on the football team at this moment.
Speaking of Mathieu, that is where this story gets truly sad.
It’s no secret that Mathieu has struggled with marijuana abuse in the past, getting suspended for last year’s Auburn game, before ultimately getting kicked off the team this fall. In both cases it was believed that failed drug tests had led to Mathieu’s troubles.
It was also after he was kicked off the team in August that Mathieu went down to Houston to go to a drug treatment facility with former NBA superstar and drug counselor John Lucas. At the conclusion of that treatment Mathieu elected to return to LSU and focus on his academics, even though he could’ve transferred to an FCS school and played right away.
Regardless, this is a sad day for Mathieu and a major bump in the road which we had all hoped would eventually lead him to remove marijuana from his life completely.
Crystal Ball Run will keep you updated as more details are released.
For all his opinion, insight and analysis, follow Aaron on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.
