Oregon tailback LeGarrette Blount: Caught on Tape

Update: Oregon announced that Blount has been suspended for the season. At one time, Blount was being touted as a dark horse Heisman candidate. While I was watching ESPN, Robert Flores said the one NFL individual told him that Blount went from being a second or third round pick to undrafted. No hopes of Heisman and the chances of an NFL career are truly slim.

Everyone's probably seen it. This is a full version (along with highlights) of the events that transpired after the Oregon-Boise State game last evening. The principals involved are LeGarrette Blount of Oregon and Byron Hout of Boise Sate.



The most bizarre and ironic part of this story is what transpired before the game. Someone in their wisdom found it necessary to have a pre-game ceremonial handshake as a gesture of good sportmanship. Blount was one of the participants.

If you watched the full 3 minutes, you noticed that Hout appears to slap Blount on his shoulder pad and say something in Blount's direction. It's almost as if Hout was taunting Blount. Then, the infamous punch was thrown. A punch all of the world would know see and remember.

What degree of blame does Hout have in this dreaded incident? He does bear some. Very little, but some. A grade school teacher once taught me that not only are there sore losers, but sore winners as well. That appears to be the case with Hout. But Blount showed the ultimate display of being a sore loser.

Blount's future as an Oregon Duck remains clouded. Blount was suspended in February for "failure to fulfill team obligations". Those team obligations were reportedly winter workouts. Not a big deal considering last night's developments.

Oregon athletic director Mike Bellotti said he would confer with Pac-10 officials before making a decision. Oregon's new head coach Chip Kelly had this statement after the events:

"There's no place in college football for that," Kelly said. "…This [Boise State] is a heckuva football team. It shouldn't be marred by something after the fact. They beat us, and to react poorly after the game is not what we're all about. I just told the kids in the locker room that we have to learn how to play with emotion, not let emotion play with us. When you go out and get beat in a football game, you go out and shake that guy's hand and you go in the locker room and prepare for your next opponent. That stuff has no place in our program and won't have any place in our program."

And what does Blount have to say of his actions?

"I should have handled that situation a lot better than I did," Blount said. "I apologize. We will never have a game like this again. … The game as it went on, just got more frustrating and more frustrating for me in general. I shouldn't have said anything. I shouldn't have done anything."

The game was extremely frustrating for Blount: 8 carries for -5 yards. Not a stat line any running back would be proud of having. But Blount might not get another chance to handle a similar situation "a lot better". While his apology will most likely be accepted, his actions will be what everyone remembers.

And his actions could lead to his dismissal from Oregon's football program.