I like the move UNC took with Austin

And so it begins, to steal a line from Lord of the Rings, here comes the first “casualty” of might be a lot more or maybe not. Senior defensive tackle Marvin Austin, who some say started this whole investigation with some twittering and that a couple of days ago put a comment on his FaceBook account, has been suspended indefinitely from the team and will not play against LSU in the team’s season opener. What I do find interesting, and I have seen many people (from fans to bloggers to media) talk about it, is that he is right now off the team for violating team rules and “This decision is not a result of the ongoing NCAA review,” according to head coach Butch Davis. Many believe that this was a move so that the university didn’t have to reveal much more about the current situation involving Austin, saying it was attached to either of the on going investigation would have required a bit more detail. I have another theory to all of this.

Yes, in the end North Carolina could have used that line to avoid talking about the situation, on that I am not going to make my stand. However, it might just be because they do not want the rest of the team to be anymore distracted than they already are about the two pronged investigation. By not saying anything about the situation it will allow the players to be able to say “we do not know”, “we are not at liberty to speak about it” and other things that will keep it all to a one question and no answer interview on the matter. If explanations were given out you know that the media would begin to ask the players how they feel about what happened and that would just lead to more and more questions that these players do not need at this time.

I believe that this process, before it’s over, will take us into week 5 or 6 at the earliest. UNC is doing it’s best not to have the players field questions until it is over, or right about finished, so that they can be as focused as possible with the on going season. Do I believe the players know a lot about all of this? Sure, but let’s keep them going on the field, the off the field stuff we can all wait to see what happens.

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