Already set to take on Michigan in the Citrus Bowl without a large number of key players, the Gators’ list of available players continues to shrink.
Running back Jordan Scarlett has been suspended for the Citrus Bowl for being in possession of marijuana, as first reported by Thomas Goldkamp of 247Sports. The suspension comes from an incident in his dorm a week ago. A residence hall director smelled marijuana coming from Scarlett’s room and called campus police, who confronted him in his room. Scarlett confessed that he had marijuana, but that he had “already smoked most of it.” He then “opened his desk drawer and grabbed a pipe that he used to smoke marijuana and a half-smoked marijuana cigarette.”
This report came out a mere three hours after it was announced that offensive tackle Mason Halter and linebacker Anthony Harrell were suspended due to “academics reasons”. And that’s all on top of the Alex McCalister mess, where he was reportedly booted for a violation of team rules (for what it’s worth, McCalister has denied that to me; more on that later in the week). So that makes three players suspended for a big time bowl game in one day, and four in one week. Not good.
Scarlett came on strong toward the end of the season after it appeared early on that he was headed for a redshirt. His number of carries were limited (34 on the year), but he broke off a few big ones, including a 60 yarder against Georgia. He and fellow freshman Jordan Cronkrite are expected to carry the load at running back next year with Kelvin Taylor departing early for the NFL, but this certainly won’t help his case to get more carries.
I’ll still contend that Scarlett’s a good dude with a good head on his shoulders, and I can’t really bring myself to crucify him for such an innocuous crime. But he did something he knew he wasn’t supposed to do, and now won’t play in the Citrus Bowl because of it.
