Chris Dufresne: LeGarrette Blount got what he deserved ... and maybe more
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Eight games were enough for suspended Oregon tailback LeGarrette Blount, who was reinstated Monday by the Pacific 10 Conference.
Blount will be eligible to play in the Ducks’ home games Saturday against Arizona State.
In hindsight, eight games may have too many for Blount, who paid a steep price for punching Boise State’s Byron Hout after Oregon’s Sept. 3 loss in Idaho.
Last week, Florida suspended star linebacker Brandon Spikes for one half against Vanderbilt after he tried to gouge the eyes out of a Georgia player.
Florida later ‘stiffened’ the punishment to a full game.
Blount deserved serious discipline for what he did on that Thursday night before Labor Day, but his situation was complicated and compounded by the fact that the game was nationally televised and that the YouTube video of the punch whirled around the world.
First-year Oregon Coach Chip Kelly knew he couldn’t go lightly and initially suspended Blount for the entire season. Kelly might have left more wiggle room had he ‘indefinitely’suspended the senior, but that’s a minor point now.
No one can accuse Oregon of not acting fairly then and not acting fairly now. Oregon allowed Blount to remain on the team, keep his scholarship and eventually earn his way back on the team by meeting a specific set of conditions.
This should be a textbook case for how to handle a controversy, and Kelly and athletic director Mike Bellotti deserve credit for maturely navigating a very dicey situation.
No one can say, either, that the school reinstated Blount because the football team needed him. LaMichael James replaced Blount in the backfield and has had a break-out season.
‘I’m grateful to Coach Kelly that he cares enough to offer me this second chance,” Blount said in a statement. “Now it is up to me to prove to people that their lasting impressions of me are not what they saw in Boise.
‘When I am ready to address this further with the public and the media, I will do so. Until that time, I feel my actions can speak louder than anything I could say. I just want to help my teammates who have been supportive of me.”
Blount has three games and a bowl left to show the NFL he is worthy of its top-rounds consideration.
No one got a free pass here. Blount might even get to play his final game in the Rose Bowl, which would be incredible when you consider how his season started.
-- Chris Dufresne
twitter.com/DufresneLATimes
