WWLBD? Punch You in the Mouth- That's What.

Some guys handle losing better than others, and then there is Oregon running back LaGarrette Blount.  That fist to the jaw of Boise State linebacker Byron Hout kind of put a damper on the whole ‘let’s all be good sports’ handshake before the game.

Couple of things here.  One, DO NOT run your mouth at Blount, at least not if you want to keep your teeth in your mouth.  Two, what happens to Blount?  The Pac-10 will come down, as will Oregon.  Oregon AD Mike Bellotti says that they are disappointed and that they are going to look at the film.  Fine, whatever, go through the motions, do what you will.

The real question is what does 1st year head coach Chip Kelly do with Blount?  If he wants to be in charge, to let everyone know that he is running the show, that he won’t have thugs and punks on his team, he pats Blount on the back and tells him better luck at your next school, (and then gets his hands up to protect himself).  You bring him back, after he sucker punched a guy on national TV, gave the program a black duckbill, on the opening night of the season, after a game that was dedicated to sportsmanship  and all credibility, authority and moral high ground is gone...after one night.  Bad enough to get your ass kicked publicly and play as horridly as the Ducks did, worse to get rolled and then drop a sucker punch on the way back to the locker room and become the poster child for thugs in college football in 5 seconds.

Whack him and the message is clear, “we don’t roll like that.”  Let him off with anything less than a massive suspension, and you are one crutch swinging, helmet bashing, Lamar Thomas shouting incident away from being the Miami of the pacific northwest.

Not to mention the fact, do you really want a guy that is that unstable on your squad?  The guy looked like Clubber Lang after Balboa took him out in Rocky III when he was being taken off the field by staff and teammates.  He wasn’t sorry, or embarrassed, or remorseful, he wanted to get back on the field and finish Hout, or whoever else was going to get in his way.  His “apology” after the game wasn’t exactly the most sincere thing I have ever heard.  Blount already faced discipline this off season because of poor workout and meeting attendance and now this?

That guy is going to keep his head in a big moment?  That is a guy you can trust with the game on the line?  This guys will stay down in big games against USC, Cal and Oregon State?

And don’t even bother with the ‘he was asking for it’ defense.  Blount was the one threatening an ‘ass whooping’ prior to the game, he made himself a target of trash talk.  If you are going to run your mouth, then you better be able to hear about it after you fail to back it up.  He doesn’t talk, Hout doesn’t pop off, and no one nearly gets their teeth knocked out.  Save it.

Lastly, the most important question of it all.  WWLBD?  What would LaGarrette Blount Do?  He’ll punch you in the face, that’s what.

Blount Suspended for Rest of Season

I guess there wasn’t much to think about after all.  1st year Oregon head coach Chip  Kelly broke of running back turned heavyweight LaGarrette Blount, suspending him for the rest of the year after he dotted Bosie State’s Ryan Hout’s chin after the Ducks got plucked on ESPN Thursday night.

Just because it was the easy decision, doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right one.  Yes, it is a hell of a lot easier to swing the axe and suspend him for the season that it would have been to keep him on the bench for a few games and deal with the inevitable backlash, but sometimes the easy way is the right way.

The program and, more specifically Kelly, were at a crossroads.  Let Blount back and the bar is set real low for future sucker punchers.  Let him slide with a few games and Da’ U West coast chapter is up and running.  Kelly is getting started and the least thing he needed was Blount-gate.  This ends it.

And not for a second am I buying that Kelly whacked the kid to cover his own ass and get people off the egg they layed in Boise.  As brutal as it was, Blount could have hit him with a chair, stabbed him in the eye, and set the corpse on fire and no one is going to lose sight of how bad the Oregon team was.

Sending Blount back to the dorm might have bought him a day at the most, and then all eyes are back on the team.  If he did this to cover his own back, he spent less time on that plan than he did on a way to move the ball last night.

TR