Florida State’s Jameis Winston suspended for first half of Clemson game

Florida State Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher has announced that reigning Heisman winning quarterback Jameis Winston will be suspended for the first half of their game against Clemson.  This comes on the heels of an incident where Winston was yelling in the school’s student union, including language that was described by witnesses as ‘vulgar’ and ‘offensive’.  The school and football program received a great deal of criticism for Winston’s handling of discipline over his shoplifting of crab legs where the football team considered his punishment with the baseball team enough.  Now, media and critics are surprised with how strong the response has been in this incident.

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Winston has run into a few issues in his time in Tallahassee, bringing his judgment and maturity into question.  It is unclear how much Fisher’s decision to suspend Winston for the first half of this game was purely based on this incident or a sense that Winston has not really understood the weight that comes with his position and status from last season’s undefeated season and how much more visible he is.

Substantial speculation has been bandied about in regards to whether Winston will decide to declare for the NFL Draft after this year, his redshirt sophomore season.  Winston took a hefty insurance policy out before the season, but both Winston and his father have suggested that Winston may stay one or even two more seasons.  This latest incident and the trend of issues that Winston has faced might suggest that his best decision would be to stay in college and continue to mature because an NFL team may have a difficult time dealing with some of the issues that he has run across.

The other part of this is that Clemson may be one of the few teams that the Seminoles play this year that has much of a chance to prevent them from having another undefeated regular season.  Between the talent on Florida State and the relatively weak field they play, the team has been widely projected to be one of the four playoff teams this season with a good chance to repeat as National Champions.  It will be interesting to see how much information gets out from Fisher as well as the program regarding Winston, this incident, and where they feel he is as a person.