LSU's football team was due a quiet offseason, especially given how turbulent the last two have been.
But this one hasn't started off too well.
Leading rusher Jeremy Hill was arrested early Saturday morning and charged with simple battery following an incident at Reggie's, a bar near the LSU campus. He was jailed briefly and released after posting a $500 bond, according to booking records. Hill is accused of punching a 20-year-old man and was caught on video, according to police. A second attacker is still being sought after the victim said he lost consciousness.
LSU coach Les Miles was in New York City attending the NFL draft and has yet to comment. He dealt with the Tyrann Mathieu situation last summer when Mathieu was dismissed from the team after failing multiple drug tests. And then two years ago, there was the August bar brawl involving starting quarterback Jordan Jefferson that led to Jefferson being suspended for the first part of the season.
The Tigers had a school-record nine players taken in this year's NFL draft, but one of those, cornerback Tharold Simon, was arrested in his hometown two nights before he was drafted in the fifth round for public intimidation of a police officer, resisting an officer, a noise violation and obstruction of a roadway.
In Hill's case, being involved in an incident at a bar is not a huge deal in itself. It happens all the time with college students.
But his past potentially makes it a very big deal. If he's convicted, he could be in violation of his probation from pleading guilty to carnal knowledge of a juvenile in January of 2011. Hill originally signed with LSU in 2011, but didn't attend LSU that year after being arrested on charges of oral sexual battery involving a 14-year-old girl. He eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and accepted a six-month suspended sentence with supervised probation for two years.
