Here's the deal...
I have a lot of respect for Izzo and the basketball program at MSU. The guy runs a tight ship, for the most part he tries to graduate his kids, and I can handle losing to them. I respect Izzo and the MSU basketball team as worthy adversaries, even if my basketball team has embarassed me lately. I bothers me when Robinson pleads out to a sexual assault and probably won't miss a game. I wish Tommy Amaker would run UofM's basketball program like Izzo runs MSU's.
Izzo runs the MSU basketball program like Lloyd Carr runs the football program. With 80+ kids there'll always be someone getting in trouble, but he handles it well. I have a few friends inside the football program at UofM still, and they say that Carr told Jackson before he took the polygraph test that if he failed it, he was out for a whole lot of games if not the whole year. You've gotta balance giving a young kid a second chance and what's best for the program, and those are the toughest decisions a coach makes. I've always been proud of how Lloyd Carr has handled situations like that.
I've had no respect for how the MSU football program has handled such problems in the past. Bobby Williams ran a joke of a program. Everyone I know on the MSU campus I went to high school with said it was a known fact Smoker ran with the dope heads. Williams recruited convicted child molestors and it's been alleged by MSU alumni that Williams used his connections to make sure the family didn't press charges against Foster and Knott. Without the support of the victim's family police had to take the lesser count.
Then JLS came in and said that would all change. What Smoker did last year wasn't the same as what guys like Maurice Clarett and Marlin Jackson did. Smoker's behavior embarassed the program and cost MSU wins last year. Smoker's problems affected his performance on the field. While I certainly am not defending Marlin Jackson, his behavior didn't cause UofM to lose.
JLS had a chance in the offseason to prove that this was indeed going to be a different MSU football team. Academics would be important, players wouldn't run around doing whatever they wanted as long as they won games, the program was going to be bigger than any one player. But faced with a horrible recruiting season last year because MSU took so long to hire a coach, JLS gave Smoker another chance.
Then the crap with Smoker leading the band and JLS slapping him. All I could think was, "how low-class is that?" If you're supposed to be a legitimate football program you don't celebrate beating a MAC team like you won the National Championship.
I once again have no respect for the MSU football program. Until they start acting like a legitimate program they won't be one.