There’s a punt returner in Oregon who no doubt will be greatly relieved now that Tyrann Mathieu will soon no longer be one
of the lead stories on ESPN every night.
The motion surely will be seconded by a hapless Kentucky quarterback and an unsuspecting West Virginia receiver. To say nothing
of the entire Georgia punt coverage team. Arkansas’ too.
They all played the straight men, chagrined victims in the highlight reel that was Mathieu’s first two years at LSU.
Even in the last week as a young man without a team, the defensive pest they call the Honey Badger was the most famous player
in college football.
And the sportscasts certainly haven’t lacked for background highlights — sometimes he seems as much a force of nature as a
mere football player — as his latest chapter has unfolded last week.
Before Mathieu was booted from the
Tigers for what was reported as repeated failed drug tests, the coaches’
preseason poll
had LSU ranked No. 1. Without Mathieu is a drug rehab clinic in
Houston, The Associated Press Top 25 poll came out Saturday
with the Tigers’ downgraded to No. 3 in the nation. Ralph Russo of
the AP, who puts the poll together, said the Tigers were
on their way to being No. 1 in his poll, too, before he was
dismissed.
LSU will surely miss him.
For opposing offenses, the diminutive Honey Badger is the pesky house fly at the picnic, the one they keep swatting at but
just can’t get out of their hair.
Mathieu is also seemingly made for the college spotlight, which culminated last season when he was a rare defensive player
among the five finalists invited to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation.
Fans are drawn to him, a little 5-foot-9 guy wreaking havoc in a big man’s sport, all the while confidently chattering about,
sometimes bordering on taunting far bigger players, usually backing it up and almost always seeming to have a blast doing
it.
Honey Badger ain’t shy.
LSU’s media guide claims he has more followers on Twitter than any college football player — and, until going mostly silent
in the last week, he didn’t leave them wanting, 140 characters at a time, all over the map.
One minute he’d be Twitter-sparring
with Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron, the next promising to prove the
“haters” wrong,
the next thanking his fans for the “love” or updating them on how
early and hard he was working and “balling” this day, how
humbled and God-fearing he felt the next.
The whole Honey Badger phenomena didn’t hurt his fame, a movement that went viral after some LSU fans came across a whimsical
take-off on a National Geographic television segment about the animal.
Honey Badger don’t care. Honey Badger takes what he wants. It almost replaced “Tiger Bait!” as LSU’s rallying cry.
It helped that he can play, although for a Heisman finalist the jury is still out on his NFL potential.
College ball, no problem. Even if it’s hard to classify him.
He’s kind of a cornerback, certainly not a classic one, and usually more effective from LSU’s nickel formations where teams
never knew what direction he might be attacking from.
But it’s often argued that his true football position is really “playmaker” or, as often as not, “game-changer.”
Call him the Honey Badger, if you must, but the peskiest breed of gremlin might fit just as well.
Often the smallest guy on the field, Mathieu more often seems to be all over it. There’s an uncanny sense to seemingly always
be at the right place (where the ball is) at the right time (when it’s about to be up for grabs).
“He’s a playmaker,” LSU defensive coordinator Chavis said last season. “It doesn’t matter where you put him, he makes plays.”
His playmaking almost seems to be some
kind of sixth sense as much as the speed or agility. He did it in the
first college
game he ever played, in the Chick-fil-A Classic against North
Carolina in Atlanta, getting one of his trademark strip-and-recover
quarterback sacks on the first defensive series he appeared.
“His mind operates to see the play in advance and make the big play,” LSU head coach Les Miles said. “He always thinks there
is something else to do in the play. Those types of guys come up with turnovers.”
Game-changing turnovers. And many happy returns.
Late in the year against Arkansas and the next week in the SEC championship game, LSU eventually won both games handily, but
needed some Honey Badgering to turn around floundering performances.
Mathieu had not done a whole lot as a
punt returner last season until he woke up LSU with a 92-yarder against
Arkansas to
pull the Tigers into a 14-14 tie. Moments later he forced a fumble
that set up the go-ahead touchdown. Just that quick, Arkansas
was suddenly on a downward spiral.
The next week LSU was really in a
slumber, trailing Georgia 10-0 without a first down when Mathieu got
loose for a 63-yard
return late in the half. He recovered a fumble to open the second
half that set up the go-ahead score and the 42-10 rout was
on after his 42-yard punt return, more impressive than either of
the two he scored on, set up another touchdown.
Yeah, he seemingly had it all.
And he let it slip away.
But to know how much those closest to
him at LSU felt about him, you only had to observe the genuine long
faces in the athletic
department at the news conference that announced he was no longer
part of the team, reportedly for failing one too many drug
tests.
“He is a quality, quality guy that had behavior issues,” Miles said. “We are going to miss him.”
“He’s a really good kid,” Athletic Director Joe Alleva said. “He really is a good kid. It’s a shame.”
From afar, former Tiger teammate T-Bob Hebert, now trying to catch on with the St. Louis Rams, checked in on Twitter to call
Mathieu “one of the best men I know; he is a leader and never quits working. I know he made me a better player through his
example.”
The Honey Badger had a lot going for him.
Despite never really knowing his
biological father — who has been in prison for second-degree murder
since he was born — and
with a mother who decided at his birth that she couldn’t raise a
fifth child, Mathieu enjoyed a decidedly middle-class upbringing
thanks to his extended family in New Orleans.
First it was his maternal grandparents
who fawned over him, until his grandfather died when Tyrann was 5 years
old. But then
his uncle Tyron — his mother’s brother — took over the duties and
provided a solid, stable, two-parent home environment where
young Mathieu didn’t lack for many of life’s creature comforts,
including going to a private Catholic school in New Orleans,
St. Augustine.
But it was obvious something was up this summer, even before the final straw last week. LSU didn’t mount even a hint of Heisman
campaign in the offseason, didn’t take the SEC’s most visible player to SEC Media Days in July and kept him off-limits to
state reporters except for LSU’s media day when the whole team is available.
Now he starts over.
“He really has a unique strength,” Miles said on the day Mathieu was cut loose from LSU. “I really think that this could be
a redirect that would benefit him greatly.”