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Having other things to do today, the only part of the day two of the NFL draft I managed to catch was the last 2-3 picks. I stopped by ESPN's 'Draftcast' to see if any Montana Grizzlies had been picked. Up to that point, nil. I wasn't really hoping for anything until it got to Kansas City and pick number 256, the Kansas City Chiefs.

Why? Because JD Quinn would've made the absolute best Mr. Irrelevant ever. Did you know Mr. Irrelevant gets an entire banquet/week dedicated to him? Oh, and on top of that, Mr. Irrelevant gets to visit the Playboy Mansion. Imagine, an entire week dedicated to JD Quinn, one in which he hangs out with Hef and the girls. Would've been great.

So, we'll wait and see who gets picked up as a free agent and then does what they can to make the team.

Oh, yeah, I'm going to try and write more. If you couldn't tell, things like driving 40 hours (both ways) to watch your football team lose a national championship and having the last Griz hoops game you attend be a heartbreaking loss to the Cats kind of takes their toll.

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Montana Grizzlies athletes who come to school in Missoula on scholarships aren't here for free. Sure, it's free to them, but it's not free. Someone is paying for it. Whether it be through those spiffy Griz license plates, buying season tickets or simply donating straight to the GSA, there are people paying for the athletes' education.

There's a great article by Dan Thompson in today's Idaho State Journal on this issue.

Coaches like to say their athletes aren't unique in regards to life experience and that they can't track their players whereabouts outside of practice. In this, coaches are correct.

''These are good, solid people coaching these teams,'' Montana coach Bobby Hauck said at the Big Sky meetings in July. ''There are good kids on these teams. I'm around enough of them on a daily basis to say these college football players are no different than anyone else on campus.''

Hauck is right about the first part, but he's only half right about the second. Yes, college football players are the same age as their classmates, prone to all the same whims and wiles.

But college athletes are also being paid, and therefore they are not like other students. They are the faces of their institutions, the same as a professor or a student body president would be. It comes with the money.

Players, then, cannot simply be defined by their actions on the field. Even moreso, they will be remembered for their transgressions away from competition. Get burned by a wide receiver and fans will forget. They won't forget a DUI so easily.

Perhaps the NFL's renewed emphasis on character will make players like Quinn realize a scholarship isn't a pass for stupidity, and that the next level won't tolerate such repeated idiocy. It doesn't take much to follow the law. Millions of people do so successfully and without incident their entire lives.

Coaches know all about privilege, and they preach it. But it shouldn't take a coach's speech to get athletes to understand the concept. Athletes simply need look at people sitting at the desks around them.

Then they will understand what privilege really means.

Scholarship or not, college kids are college kids and some will make stupid mistakes. However, when you're an athlete getting what's almost a $100,000 value (out of state tuition is about 22k per year) for free while other's have to pay that, we get to hold you to a higher standard. That's the deal.

If Jimmy Williams runs around town acting like an idiot and showing off his pistol, we get to be pissed. When he commits a terrible crime and has the press mention University of Montana and murder in the same sentence, we get to hate him. And when JD Quinn commits his third DUI after getting kicked out of his previous school for taking money he didn't earn, we have the right to be a little irked and start thinking that he may not be such great guy. Sure, Bobby got you here, but it's the fans who paid the way.

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I imagine J.D. Quinn as the big guy at the party who brags about how good he is at drinking and driving. The guy who claims to possess the ability to sober up immediately. He may say he's even passed a few field sobriety tests in his day. Look at me, come on, do I look drunk? I had eight beers! Eight! That's it! I can raise and lower my BAC at will. He's the guy you have to drive to the party because you know he'll always drive home once he's there, just to prove to everyone he could do it.

This recent arrest marks the third time Quinn has been arrested for drinking and driving. This comes from an article in the The Norman Transcript on the last time he was arrested for driving under the influence.

Oklahoma offensive lineman J.D. Quinn was arrested Tuesday and has been charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of alcohol in Cleveland County District Court.

According to a police affidavit filed with the charge, Quinn, 19, was stopped at 803 Beaumont Square for speeding and failure to use a turn signal.

The affidavit states Quinn admitted to consuming beer and consented to and failed a breathalizer test.

A Dec. 13 court date is scheduled.

Court records indicate it was Quinn’s second alcohol related offense since coming to OU. On April 30, 2004, he was arrested for actual physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated and possession of a fictitious identification card.

Is J.D. trying to get caught? If I were trapped someplace, let's say in the wilderness with an impending blizzard, and absolutely had to drive home with a BAC slightly above the legal limit, I can guarantee you I wouldn't be going a single mile per hour over the speed limit. J.D speeded while intoxicated twice. No one knows how the first one played out but it did include him giving a fake ID to a cop. Nice.

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I'm speechless. I'm without speech. I have no comment other than it had been just a little too quiet for the past couple weeks.

From the Cat-Griz Insider:

More trouble in Grizzlyville. J.D. Quinn, the troubled Oklahoma transfer, was apparently arrested for DUI early Sunday morning in Missoula. Details have been few and far between, but here was coach Bobby Hauck’s reaction:

“As always, there will be firm disciplinary measures taken, and those measures will be handled within our football team. One of the disciplinary actions will include mandatory alcohol counseling.”

Interestingly enough, Jason Washington, who was recently removed from the team by Hauck, bailed Quinn out.

Could someone please Youtube this like the last time we talked about JD?

At this point, I'm getting a little numb to all of this. DUI? At least he didn't kill someone or sell cocaine, right? I know it's not right, he could've killed someone too. But still.

I feel like this kid needs constant supervision. Or an electric collar. Maybe a tape-delay on everything he says. Probably all three.

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Found via the Fanhouse.

I'm sure Bobby Hauck was disappointed to hear that his star offensive lineman had shot his mouth off again after already placing a gag order on him earlier in the season. Well, when you watch the video above you'll see that he did try to give the 'no comment' response most fans and coaches wish he would use.

It's hilarious to hear him say "get a real job" as if pretending to work at a car dealership or playing football were "real jobs" but even so, he tried to say no and the reporter kept pestering like a salesman. No means no. It's a joke that reporters still try to grab a quote from anything. How about "JD Quinn didn't want to comment on the situation?"

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The ESPN story has been updated to include some great quotes from Quinn.

When reached on his cell phone, Quinn said he did not pay any attention to the infractions committee's ruling on Oklahoma, calling it "dumb" and referring to it with an expletive.

"I have no idea," Quinn said. "I don't care."

Sounds about right. From the stories I've heard and pictures I've seen, he's an O'Doyle. He's a big fat offensive lineman from Texas. He's a bully. He's a jock. It's great. I'm being completely honest when I say that I love having him here. He's beyond entertaining. He's a college kid who acts like one and lets everyone know he's doing so.

There's a rumor he was drinking one night when he heard what the columnist from the school paper had to say about about him then proceeded to ask everyone at the party if they knew the guy so he could go beat him up. Come on, who hasn't done that? He's like Ozzie Guillen, except not annoying.

J.D. RULES!

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Today, the NCAA announced penalties for the Oklahoma Sooners football program stemming from a scandal where current Griz JD Quinn and Sam Houston State QB Rhett Bomar were paid for work they did not perform during their time as Sooners.

The Oklahoma football program must forfeit all wins from the 2005 season and will lose scholarships as a result of players being paid for work they had not performed.

The penalties, announced Wednesday by the NCAA, stem from a case involving two players, including Sooners starting quarterback Rhett Bomar, who were kicked off the team for being paid for work they had not performed at a Norman car dealership.

So this is what the NCAA does during the summer. It seems so random that it comes out a year later in the middle of July. Are a couple guys sitting around saying "Hey, you think we should deal with that Oklahoma stuff today?" "Sure, how bout this: the season doesn't count and we'll figure out how many scholarships they lose later" "Sounds good."

UPDATE: Here's some details on the ruling.

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It's really hard for me to give you any good impressions from Friday's Griz football scrimmage because I really didn't walk away feeling very impressed. It wasn't that we played bad, it's just that nothing really stood out.

I went into the scrimmage not expecting much with the two guys I would most like to see, Craig Chambers and JD Quinn, were out with shoulder and "undisclosed" injuries respectively. Even so, I was interested to see the quarterback race and how our running backs were doing.

Here are some pretty basic observations:

• The quarterback race seems pretty hope but I believe the job will be Bergquists almost by default as none of them really stood out. I think I may have developed some bias against Bergquist after seeing him next to Swogger. He just seems so small and weak-armed after watching Swogger play. It's like watching Brett Favre and being afraid of when Aaron Rodgers time eventually comes. However, Bergquist has the mobility inside the pocket that Swogger just didn't have.
  
  • They really did not pass the ball much during the scrimmage, at least not with the first team. It was really kind of discouraging. With there being something of a quarterback controversy, I figured they would want to air it out more.
  • The only real good pass of the day was about a 35 yarder from Bergquist to Allen. Seemed like it may have been due to strong pass protection as Cole had a lot of time to go through his progressions before coming back to hit a wide open Eric Allen.
• The backs played well, just about all of them making strong moves in the open field. It was good to see Lex out there. Not sure if he played much or at all in the 11 on 11 scrimmage. This is one of our deepest positions with TBF, Lex, and Coleman all being great players.
  • We ran the swing play a ton. The type of thing Baylark of UMass killed us with. However, the play was rarely run smoothly. Quarterbacks were consistently tossing bad passes out in the flats that were either incomplete, too high or behind the receiver.
  • The offensive line was not opening up holes and often letting guys into the backfield. Our backs were forced to make a move or break a tackle before they even got to the line of scrimmage.
• I almost felt robbed. The whole thing lasted about 90 minutes, maybe a bit less. They spent probably 70 minutes running a normal practice and 20 minutes scrimmaging. I mean watching practice is worthwhile but I wasn't interested in watching the QBs hit wide open receivers and having no idea where they were actually trying to throw it.
  

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University of Montana offensive lineman JD Quinn has finally voiced how he feels about being kicked off the Oklahoma football team. It sounds a bit like what Maurice Clarrett said following his departure from from Columbus. One of those "you don't know half of what's going on" stories.

"All I did was take cash," Quinn said. "I didn't break any laws and I get kicked off the team, but there's people on the team that are breaking laws and failing drug tests and stuff like that, and there's nobody getting kicked off the team for that type of stuff."

Quinn declined to provide details of his allegations about other players, but said it was not necessarily about players on the OU team.

"I was just saying around the country. I wasn't saying it in the context of Oklahoma. There's just people I've heard of doing things."

"I didn't hurt anybody," he said during a 23-minute telephone interview Monday, during which he expressed both remorse and bitterness. "I don't understand why the punishment was so harsh."

In a second interview Tuesday, Quinn said "All I did was take money from somebody that wanted to give it, but I didn't hurt anybody or anything like that. People have gotten second chances for worse things."

With all the stories like this, you really have to wonder if a good portion of it is true. Even so, getting 8k for doing nothing should have some negative impact your eligibility. The punishment may be a little harsh but I, for one, believe that it wasn't excessive. On the other hand, I think him losing a year of eligibility and being allowed to stay on OU would've sufficed as well.

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One of the very best parts about being a college student, and cheering for your school's team's has to be how often you get to see the athletes in situations you don't expect to see them in. My personal favorite has to be seeing Griz offensive lineman JD Quinn at the Foresters Ball (if you went to UM you know what it is) on Saturday night. A close second was seeing Mike Chavez at The Queen the night before the Griz beat Weber State.

Back to Saturday night, I was walking back from the Port-O-Potties in a somewhat altered state and couldn't help but yell out "Hey, it's JD Quinn" while walking up the stairs. I wasn't really expecting a response so when he said "yes?" and looked at me I think I almost turned to stone. I uttered a "good luck next season" and continued on my way.

If you look up above you can see him off to the left. When the picture was taken, the girl front and center wasn't supposed to be included. Turns out it's UM cheerleader Kelsey Poore. Odd seeing them out of their natural environment.

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Oklahoma dropdown JD Quinn returned to practice today. Too bad it doesn't matter because the NCAA ruled today that he and former Oklahoma teammate Rhett Bomar are ineligible for the 2006 season.

Offensive lineman J.D. Quinn, who transferred to Division I-AA Montana, must pay $8,137 to the charity of his choice. Quarterback Rhett Bomar, who transferred to Sam Houston State, must pay $7,407.

"The NCAA reinstatement staff has assessed the facts presented by Oklahoma and agrees with its contention that both Mr. Bomar and Mr. Quinn willfully violated NCAA rules regarding preferential treatment and benefits," said Jennifer Strawley, NCAA director of membership services and student-athlete reinstatement.

Both players lose a year of eligibility and will only have two more at the college level.

They were kicked off the Oklahoma team before the season after getting a lot of money from a Chevrolet dealership while doing very little work.

This is a big blow to the Griz as their offensive line has done about as good of job at preventing opposing teams from getting to Swogger as event security has done at keeping peppermint schnapps out of the student section. Yeah, that schnapps led to a certain fan close to me showing everyone what he ate for breakfast.

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Here's what Hauck and Quinn had to say on the hogmolly's (no, I do not like Corso) transfer from Oklahoma:

"J.D. has paid a heavy price for a mistake that he made at the University of Oklahoma," said Griz coach Bobby Hauck. "He lost his academic aid and opportunity to play football there and will walk on to our team and try to earn a scholarship."

"I would like to thank coach Hauck and his staff, and the people of Montana, for giving me a second chance to fix a bad situation that I created at Oklahoma," Quinn said. "I am looking forward to playing football for the Grizzlies and I hope that happens soon."

"This situation gives us all an opportunity to reflect on how damaging rule infractions can be to a program and a student athlete," O'Day said.

This was from the AP article on ESPN.com. The article also pointed out that Quinn will start practice on Monday.

Lets all hope that Karl Tyler isn't too huge of a Griz fan; at least not big enough to employ J.D.

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I've been gone for some time and coming back here is probably like that awkward acquaintance you run into after a long summer. You didn't see this person all summer becuase they're not really your friend, so all you can ask when you see them in their brand new khaki shorts and that Polo shirt from TJ Maxx is "How was your summer?" You don't care how the summer was but it's the best club in the bag so you ask anyway.

Well, I've finished up work and made the move from Bainbridge Island, WA back to the Zoo. After an entire summer of fulltime work I tried to squeeze an entire summer into a week. It didn't happen.

The point is, all that's over. I've assembled a futon, finished training lawyers on how to blog and had the sprinkler go off in my dorm but we've got Iowa in less than 72 hours and it's time to roll.

A lot of things have happened since Lex went down. ex.) We got Quinn, the fraud not the god, or at least that's the way the majority of the media makes him out to be. OK, myself as well; my first son will be named Brady with the strong possibility that another will be named Quinn. Third: Favre. Fourth: Seven, or Soda if it's a girl.

I've pulled a TO, I admit it. From this point on I'm here, and I will do my best to keep readers informed on all that is going on with our Montana Grizzlies. That and providing the random Seinfeld, ND, Cubs, Packers analogy.

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