Chalk up bonehead mistakes in college football to youthful indiscretion

Think back on all the knucklehead things you did as a teenager.

Drove too fast. Stayed out too late. Tried to parachute off the roof of your parents’ house.

Young men tend to act carelessly, researchers say, because the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that helps us maintain control — does not fully develop in males until the early 20s.

Which might explain a good deal of what’s happening in college football this season.

The early weeks have been marked by an inordinate number of mindless blunders, including — but not limited to — four players breaking free for touchdowns, only to let go of the ball before crossing the goal line.

And a punter zipping a kick three feet off the ground into his lineman’s butt.

And a returner who fielded a kickoff in his end zone but forgot to take a knee before flipping the ball to the official, thereby gifting the other team with a touchdown.

“Look, these guys are young people,” said Cal Coach Sonny Dykes after one of his players messed up against Texas on Saturday. “Young people make mistakes.”

Sometimes we forget that.

The college game has become such big business, with hundreds of millions of dollars tossed around in broadcast rights, coaches’ contracts and plush training facilities, we often look upon the players as adults, if not professionals.

Those of us who are older — i.e., can remember a world before Snapchat or even Twitter — might take some of their gaffes as a sign of impudence. They don’t respect the game! That sort of thing.

Clemson returner Ray-Ray McCloud looked nothing if not arrogant when he broke a 74-yard punt return against Troy two weeks ago and left the ball behind him on the 1-yard line.

Troy recovered, costing the Tigers seven points, and McCloud mused that his coach is “always getting on me about finishing the play.”

Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon made the same mistake on a 97-yard kickoff return against Ohio State last weekend but escaped the consequences when officials failed to notice.

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Later that night, a similar kind of dumb luck found its way to Vic Enwere of Cal, who could have punctuated an upset victory over Texas with a 55-yard touchdown run in the final minutes.

Because his fumble was not immediately recovered — a Texas player nonchalantly scooped up the rolling ball three or four seconds later — the Big 12 referee awarded possession to Cal at the 1. The Golden Bears ran out the clock.

Dykes called Enwere “one of the smartest, hardest-working, best kids” on the team, and the junior seemed embarrassed by his slip-up, saying: “I hope I don’t dream about it.”

The thing is, NFL players can be just as sloppy.

DeSean Jackson has been the poster boy for premature celebrations since 2008 when, as a Philadelphia Eagles receiver, he let go of the ball too soon against Dallas.

Cowboys defensive lineman Leon Lett is still remembered for his mistake in Super Bowl XXVII when, rumbling toward the end zone with a recovered fumble, he held out the ball and had it stripped away by Buffalo Bills receiver Don Beebe.

“I look back on it now, and I say, ‘Why didn’t I just tuck the ball in and finish the play?’ ” Lett said a year later.

Mistakes among professionals might be less forgivable, if only because those guys have more years in the game and get paid millions to be full-time players. It’s a different story with college athletes in their teens and early 20s, splitting time between practice and class, still growing up in a very tangible, physiological way.

You could make the case that when Florida State running back Dalvin Cook lost control of the ball as he sprinted for the end zone against Mississippi a couple of weeks ago, it was simply a physical glitch.

As his coach, Jimbo Fisher, put it: “That’s just what happens.”

Nerves might have caused Ahmaad Harris of South Carolina State to blank on that non-touchback last weekend. Though the former UCLA receiver is a transfer graduate student, his small school was playing at Clemson on national television, the score so lopsided that coaches agreed to shorten the second half.

Sort of like the mercy rule in kids’ leagues.

Colorado punter Alex Kinney was probably just as nervous at Michigan. The Wolverines had already blocked one of his punts when he hit the low, line drive that ricocheted out of bounds, netting minus-7 yards.

“I’ll go see it on film,” Coach Mike MacIntyre said. “We’ll fix it and move on.”

Videotape is every coach’s answer to mistakes — especially stupid ones. Get the players in a dark room, make them watch over and over again. Forward and reverse. Slow-motion.

At Cal, Dykes said he assembles a highlight reel of his team’s lowest moments from the previous game, using the clips for what he calls an “opportunity to teach.”

Enwere’s almost-fumble was sure to make the list this week.

“That’s not us. That’s not our program,” Dykes said. “That will never happen to us again.”

Maybe.

But these are college kids and they have plenty of games left this season, so don’t bet on it.

david.wharton@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesWharton