<
>

Kevin Olsen can't stay out of trouble

Kevin Olsen has never taken a snap for Miami, but he keeps making headlines.

The question now becomes -- when will enough be enough?

Olsen was suspended Monday for a third time in his brief Miami career, after he was charged with driving under the influence and having a fake ID.

He may have come in as one of the highest-rated prospects in the 2013 class, but Olsen has been nothing but trouble before he even set foot in campus. In May 2013 -- just before he was set to arrive in Coral Gables -- he was charged in his New Jersey hometown with leaving the scene of an accident and failing to report an accident.

Once he got to school, Olsen sat behind Stephen Morris and redshirted. But he ended up getting suspended for the Russell Athletic Bowl for team rules violations.

He had a new opportunity going into the spring with the starting quarterback job open. Yet he could not make it a real competition with Ryan Williams. It was only when Williams went down with a knee injury that Olsen looked like he would win the starting job, albeit by default.

Coach Al Golden did his best to talk up Olsen throughout the offseason. Maybe he was just trying to convince himself that Olsen would somehow change. But when fall practice rolled around, Olsen had squandered another opportunity. Rather than embrace the second chance he had been given, Olsen was hit with a two-game suspension for team rules violations. Even then, Golden tried to convince everybody that Olsen had grown "a lot" as a person.

Clearly not enough. Brad Kaaya ended up winning the starting job.

Olsen ended up getting arrested again, less than a week after after Golden praised him for having a "really good summer" and showing "a lot of growth here in the last half year, certainly the last four months."

What step does Miami take next? Perhaps the best course of action is to get Olsen the type of help he seems to need before football even becomes part of the discussion. Perhaps Miami cuts ties all together based on his problematic history. Nobody would be surprised if that happened.

One more point to consider in all this. Miami has now had two high-profile arrest cases since July. Two linebackers were kicked off the team after they were arrested on sexual battery charges against a "physically helpless" 17-year-old girl. Now, the latest Olsen news. Conclusions cannot be drawn based on these two cases alone, but of all the programs in the country, Miami is judged more harshly than others for off-the-field behavior.

Former coach Randy Shannon worked diligently to clean up the programs' lawless image. More players have been arrested under Golden than under Shannon. Miami has had a good discipline program in place, so the administration does deserve credit there. But the Canes also cannot allow what appear to be isolated incidents to become a trend.