Florida football: Kentucky using gamesmanship with Chris Rodriguez against Gators

Gamesmanship and college football go hand-in-hand. Unlike the NFL, teams are not forced to accurately disclose injuries or even provide a halfway accurate depth chart ahead of each game. Florida football fans know that well from Dan Mullen listing guys as starters and then not even playing them.

Kentucky is in the middle of their own game of secrecy ahead of Saturday’s tilt against the Gators. Wildcat running back Chris Rodriguez was charged with DUI in May and Rodriguez has pled guilty to the charges. He was suspended by the university but an official amount of games was never announced.

Florida football: Mark Stoops is playing dumb with Chris Rodriguez

Rodriguez was pulled over on May 8 around 3 A.M. near Kentucky’s stadium. While he refused a breathalyzer test, the arresting officer noted Rodriguez was swerving out of his lane, had slurred speech, red eyes, and had trouble passing a field sobriety test.

All the classic signs of a driver under the influence.

From a legal standpoint, Rodriguez has been assessed a fine and a suspended license, but no jail time.

Kentucky announced Rodriguez was suspended indefinitely. As the season got closer and closer, reporters would ask about his status and Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops kept brushing the question aside saying he didn’t know.

After not playing in their opener against Miami (OH), questions keep being asked about the availability of Rodriguez. Stoops claimed this week at his press conference that he still doesn’t know when Rodriguez will be back because the situation is “Out of my hands.”

News flash, no one believes that Stoops doesn’t know.

To be clear, DUI is a serious offence and if Kentucky as a university is standing by their morals and keeping Rodriguez out they should be applauded. We tend to brush off DUI as no big deal but in reality the difference between “careless driving” and “DUI manslaughter” is whether or not another vehicle or person was in the area when the offender was driving carelessly.

If Rodriguez swerves onto the sidewalk at the wrong time, someone dies.

With that said, the legal system has all but run its course and the only thing preventing Rodriguez was playing on Saturday is the University of Kentucky itself.

And this isn’t the first time Stoops or the university have had an athlete get in trouble in the offseason.

The standard script when an athlete gets in trouble in the offseason is that they are suspended for the first game against a weaker opponent (aka Miami (OH)), and then magically come back once they are facing a real opponent.

If the decision of when to allow Rodriguez on the field is “out of my hands” as Stoops claims, then Kentucky fans should have serious questions about whether or not the university trusts Stoops to run his own program. And if the university hasn’t given Stoops a set number of games, that is also a can of worms to explore.

But these are the Kentucky Wildcats. Depending who you believe, Kentucky is a football school these days. The Wildcats have a better chance to win against Florida football with Rodriguez than without.

Even if Rodriguez is suspended against Florida football, Kentucky 100% knows what its doing by not disclosing his status. The Gators have to plan this week for him in the event he magically finds himself in the good graces of the university.

We know Florida football in the past haven’t been angels and it’s possible under previous coaching staffs that a player charged with DUI wouldn’t even miss a single game. Would Napier and staff play this card of “Geeze guys, I don’t know” if placed in a similar situation? Hard to say.

Either way, Mark Stoops is turning a DUI charge into an opportunity to create doubt in Florida football’s mind.

And you know it.

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