On Saturday, Miami and Florida International decided to dedicate their game to Don King.  In the middle of the third quarter, a huge brawl erupted; to end the melee, a number of police officers were forced to intervene.  The immediate result was the ejection of thirteen players; the end result was the suspension of thirty-one players.

Most interesting in this incident was not the fight — after the Pistons/Pacers fight, these things are fairly pedestrian — but the attitudes of the Miami players.  The general consensus seems to be that FIU players both did their part to provoke Miami and started the fight itself, and they should be held responsible for their actions.  But to listen to the Hurricanes, you’d think they were innocent bystanders, not full participants.

“It’s something they started, and our guys finished it,” Kyle Wright proclaimed.  “It’s not our fault,” Kenny Phillips insisted; “Whatever it was, it wasn’t us.”

Even forgetting Miami’s sordid thug history, consider recent history.  While FIU delivered the first blows in the Florida fracas, Miami’s behavior continues to contradict its public image improvements.  Even as the university seeks to clean its football reputation, the Hurricanes have been involved in two fights in the last seven games, and three in the last year.  They even had a near-fight in another game this season; prior to their game at Louisville, Miami players made a grand show of stomping on the logo at midfield.

Further, their behavior in the FIU game hardly demonstrated maturity.  After a short touchdown pass, James Bryant pointed at the FIU bench and took a theatrical bow toward the stands.  His behavior drew a well-deserved flag, and it also likely inflamed the apparently volatile FIU players even more.

If this had been an anomaly, Miami would have room to plead innocent.  But three fights and one near-fight in one year do not allow the football program to claim higher moral ground.  The character of the program and its players is shown on the field; on Saturday, the Hurricanes showed something.

Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t character.

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On that theme, here’s the startling statement of the day, from a USA Today article:

“Why is it bad? I really don’t understand. I think it’s good. It gets people to watch football more,” said Sara Cass, 19, a Miami student from New York City. “I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best way of approaching it, but a spark has been created and maybe this will help the team.”