Another Tennessee Football Player Arrested

Sports News - November 18th, 2009 - Written by John

Back on Wednesday, Nov. 11, University of Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin addressed the media and praised his program for not having an off-field incident in the 11 months he had been at the helm. Since then, it's gotten rather ugly.

The next day, three players were arrested for allegedly walking up to a car brandishing a pellet gun and demanding money. Again, speaking of the unfortunate incident, which has since resulted in two of those players kicked off the team, Kiffin shrugged off the notion of a team-wide problem.

It would have been easy to agree with him, given that it appeared to be an isolated incident. But Tuesday, it was announced that yet another Volunteer football player, Nyshier Oliver, had been arrested, this time for shoplifting. Oh, and Oliver's arrest came on Nov. 7, a full four days before Kiffin's initial declaration that his regime had been clean and without incident.

According to the police report by the Knox County Sheriff's Department, Oliver was at a mall department store hours before Tennessee's game against Memphis, and was seen sneaking an expensive polo shirt into a shopping back. The shirt was priced at $110. He was cited at 1:45 p.m., and the game was scheduled at 7 p.m.

Tennessee apparently dealt with Oliver internally, and tried to sweep it under the rug. He was taken off the dress team for the game against Memphis.

Oliver is a freshman from New Jersey, who was named the no. 39 overall athlete coming out of high school by Rivals.

With already handful to deal with, Kiffin this time has opted to hold his comments until further notice.

Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards were kicked off the team because of the attempted robbery, although a third player, Janzen Jackson, remains eligible because of his limited role in the heist. Jackson was reportedly release earlier than the other two, and still hopes to have his charges dropped.

"We don't have all [Jackson's] information in," Kiffin told ESPN. "I can't get into too much detail with it. But the easiest thing to look at is that he was released right away and was treated differently in this matter. You can tell that by what has come out. I can't get into too much more detail than that until we get the information in."

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