Ugh.

I wish Coker the best, but wish he could/would have stayed. I hope Garmon is ready-made for immediate playtime. It sounds like we’re going to need him.

Well… that’s just great. It would be interesting to know what really happens behind the scenes.

I think that as fans we should know why these players were suspended and are leaving the program. Without the fans the football program would not have the funding it does. The fans are the ones buying tickets and merchandise and since they have an interest in the program they should get some answers.

Who cares? Running backs are a dime a dozen.

@thomas – using that logic, you should be able to see a privately held company’s financial statement just because you buy their products.

Agree with Steve…next man in.

I was hoping to see more of D’Andre Johnson this year, well maybe next year.

I’m on board with “next man in.” That’s football. But there’s something fishy about the ridiculous turnover at RB. You’d hope that KF and/or Barta are at least looking at the “why” behind this? It’s an issue that shouldn’t really be flat-out ignored.

Michael.
Isn’t the university a public institution?

we sure have a lot of talent leaving, i think this guy has a hell of a future. i wonder if we are being to hard on these young men. if this continues we are going to be average at best. i hope we are not imposing tougher rules than other schools. best of luck to coker and i appreciate your efforts.

Really disappointing. Of all the places that we should have been solid for once, RB was it. Now instead of adding to what we had we’re back to square zero – minus Canzeri’s “veteran” status after 31 carries last year…..

Sadly, Coker doesn’t know that NO means. I wish the aclown that sat next to me at the Insight Bowl was around, he thought Coker was God.

Let’s see. Marcus Coker was investigated, no charges were preferred and the investigation was closed. He was suspended EIGHT WEEKS after the first report and gagged. After the Insight, Coker was strung out with an indefinite suspension. Simple fairness would dictate that he be told what is status was, but that obviously never happened. Nor was it about to. That was the essence of Gestapo strategy, all you history readers out there.

Ferentz and Barta are disgracing my university with their conduct toward these kids. They make up their own rules of suspension, and they do not apply them equally to all Specifically, two Derbys, Kyle Calloway and Ferentz’s own son, James, all of whom were actually charged with misdemeanor crimes, all of whom served single game suspensions and all of whom were brought back promptly. Contrast that with Adam Robinson, Coker and McCall, two of whom were never charged with any crime., the third with a misdemeanor. Incidentally, the first group of guys were all white, the second all black, and if that looks like a coincidence, well, I have never believed in coincidence to that extent. It may prove nothing, but it should be looked into, even so, out of simple fairnss. Yeah, THAT word again.

So let’s break it down: A student was essentially cleared of wrongdoing (that’s what NO CHARGES WERE FILED AND THE INVESTIGATION WAS CLOSED means, by the way) and left out to hang-dry indefinitely. Of course he left. I would too. This disgraces my school, and it has been my school, by God, longer than the present athletic administration ever got there. They do not enjoy the right of secrecy when they are screwng with the legal rights of students.

While I am angered by this also, I don’t think flying the race flag or blaming Ferentz for this is the right way to go about it.

- Coker thanked the coaches in his Facebook comment.

- Ferentz stated that he thought he would be back, and Coker even said he was coming back. Is seems as if this suspension was handed down by the University, not Ferentz, maybe not even Barta.

Let’s all remember, Iowa isn’t Ohio State, USC, or such with 4 to 5 star recruits knocking at the door. They look for and find potential, they pay attention to every detail, even the smallest. Instead of talent, they want character…I don’t know of too many other coaches in the FBS that could do what our staff does.

I, nor anyone else outside of Coker and the University has any idea whether any wrong doing took place or not. But I genuinely believe that Coker was innocent. He was unselfish in his play on the team and I think he was the same off the field.

I also do not think that we are entiteled to know what goes on with the suspensions. Yes, it is a blow to the team, but we have to remember that these are young students ranging from around 18-23 years old. We have NO business knowing what goes on with them.

Mike, it seems that we share a lot of the same opinions towards topics! While I agree with what you say, I also try to look at the privacy of the student. Plus, how much of this is dictated by the University? Maybe KF’s hands are tied in regards to what he can/can’t release.

I think that we tend to compare them to the NFL level. We know almost everything about the professionals, but that’s their job! These “kids” are still students first, there’s a lot of pressure on them (obviously they should expect it), but I think we should respect that. No offense to you or anyone else, by any means for wanting to know!

Why does this story smell so bad? Are we seeing a Penn State style coverup here?

It smells so bad because there are so many bodies piling up.

Fact: a sexual assault was called in from UIHC. The assaulted party declines to pursue charges.

The victim becomes another enabler, letting the attacker off the hook. The attacker walks away. Didn’t the Pierce saga start this way?

There are several things here that are extremely disconcerting.

1. According to this report and the media reports–the alleged incident occurred October 28th, between 1:15 and 1:30 pm at Coker’s apartment.

Problem–at that time, Coker would have been on a bus heading towards Minneapolis for Iowa’s football game vs Minnesota the next day

2. According to the Iowa City Police–the UI Athletic Department was informed of the alleged incident “shortly after” the incident allegedly took place. However, Coker was not suspended until 8 weeks later.

According to the UI Student Athlete Code of Conduct–it states that the UI Director of Athletics (Gary Barta) SHALL suspend a student athlete if there is “specific and credible information whether there is a reasonable basis for concluding that the student-athlete has committed Category I misconduct”.

Problem–if the Iowa City Police and Johnson County Attorney’s office after investigating the alleged incident decided that NO charges would be filed–then how would there be “specific and credible information” for Barta to base any suspension off of?

My fear here is this–Marcus Coker may very well have been falsely accused of a sexual assault.

If law enforcement and the county attorney BOTH came to the conclusion NOT to pursue charges and the alleged victim also did not press charges–would that not be “specific and credible information” that nothing had occurred?

Remember folks, the UI is not that far removed from the Cedric Everson/Abe Satterfield affair–where the UI was accused of mishandling allegations of sexual assault.

So, it stands to reason that the UI would be far more heavy handed in future situations as to avoid those types of allegations again.

So, as a result–you very well may have a situation where to avoid further negative publicity–the UI chose to suspend Coker and send him the message that he would be better off at another school.

Is that fair to Mr. Coker? What if Coker did absolutely NOTHING wrong here–yet due to false accusations is being made out to be a scapegoat?

The media needs to do some serious investigative work here. There are far more questions than answers here.

Mike Miller,

Do I want to start the “black and white thing”? “You are way off”? I didn’t “start” it. The facts did. I pointed out the difference in the way several players were treated and it turned out they were divided along racial lines. Coincidence? Maybe , but I did not create the situation. The code of silence seems to be geared toward never letting us know, but it is a fact that some of these guys are being treated differently than the others and we are being stonewalled on what is going on. And it IS our business if fairness and equal treatment are not being followed. Race happens to be a facet of this whether you like it or not, and the assumption that it cannot be possible to have race as an issue on the Iowa football team is disingenuous. It happened under Ray Nagel when the coach did not understand his players, and Ferentz has already shown a tendency to come down harder on players who have different attitudes and approaches than he does. Darrell Johnson-Koulianos comes to mind. He was in trouble here for as long as he was here. Race may not be a factor here after all, but ignoring the possibility is irresponsible, and there is still the significant evidence that these guys are not being treated equally, whatever the reason. We all deserve to know if our alma mater is playing fair with its students. The questions are worth asking.

Simply amazing is the attitude that Coker was treated badly. When a woman tells you no that means NO! Coker could have avoided all of this, but he was thinking with the wrong head. This has nothing to do with race. I surely hope that your comments would be the same had it been your daughter or any other female relative. I for one am glad the message is being sent that because your an athlete that your not above the law.

Paul Davis,

While I agree that it may look that way, that’s not the way to go about it. We know TOO LITTLE to make an assumption, and that’s how rumors get started. If indeed that is the case, then I’m sure we would all agree that it IS wrong. Without all the details, we can’t start grasping for straws to make sense out of it to satisfy our own curiosity.

I am and always will be a huge DJK fan. But even he put on his twitter account when the news came out that it is not on the coaching staff if the player does something wrong. Granted we still don’t know if Coker was in the wrong or not, but ultimately they are responsible for their own actions.

Ferentz has a “my way or the highway” philosophy, which is how it should be. Look at Urban Meyer, didn’t he ban Twitter for all Buckeye football players, then you don’t have to worry about it!

Whether or not wrong doing has been done within the staff or not, we don’t know. But until we do, we should not be pointing fingers or making false accusations if there is no proof in detail.

Mike:

My son is a close friend of the girl involved, so I have known about this for a long time. The girl is a very good student and has the utmost integrity. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter. No means No period!