Mississippi State enrolls Jeffery Simmons, with conditions

Mississippi State has enrolled Jeffery Simmons, a five-star recruit who was caught on video repeatedly punching a woman and is facing assault charges.

We all spent the last week watching Baylor explode because they repeatedly put football above the welfare and safety of women on campus. Today, Mississippi State decided they needed to put football above the safety of women on campus.

Today, Mississippi State decided they needed to put football above the safety of women on campus by allowing Jeffery Simmons to enroll in school, with conditions, athletic director Scott Stricklin said at SEC Spring Meetings.

“Based on conversations our staff has had with school, community and church leaders in Noxubee County, this incident appears to be uncharacteristic of Jeffery,” MSU Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin said. “It’s a highly unique circumstance to administer discipline to a student for an incident that occurred prior to that individual joining our university. However, it’s important that Jeffery and other potential MSU students understand that these type of actions and poor decisions are not acceptable.

“We expect the structure and discipline Jeffery will be a part of in our football program to benefit him. Jeffery will be held accountable for his actions while at MSU, and there will be consequences for any future incidents.”

For the record, Mississippi State’s big new recruit did this…

And now he is going to play for Mississippi State.

Mississippi State claims that Simmons was only trying to break up this fight, but the fact that he repeatedly punched one of the women as she laid on the ground is not something you can dispute.

Stricklin, the Mississippi State athletic director, spoke to the media today on why State decided this recruit needed to play football for them and his answers sound like vintage Baylor.

So the fear that some other school would let the person who was caught on video beating a woman play for them was the motivating factor? Another way to say this might be “Winning football games is more important to us than women who attend MSU.”

Having to speak to Title IX lawyers before you decide to enroll someone probably should be a red flag Scott.

Getting caught with a joint is a teenage mistake, beating a woman on video is not. When you try to say that violence against women is just a “mistake” you trivialize it. In this case though trivializing this very serious incident is exactly what Stricklin wants to do.

We are going to sit him for one game, isn’t that enough?

Beating women is fine as long as you do it before you’re enrolled.

I’m sure MSU fans and Stricklin will justify their choice with the old “giving kids a second chance” line. Heck, they may even believe that that’s the reason they are enrolling this guy, I’m sure Art Briles thought the same thing.

More saturday blitz: 50 Best SEC Football Players of All-Time

Stricklin and head football coach Dan Mullen sent a message to the world today, and that message is that college football didn’t learn anything from what happened at Baylor.

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