Oklahoma State Ranks 19th in Country in Most Arrests in Last Five Years

Former San Jose Mercury News reported Mike Rosenberg tweeted these college football arrest totals from the last five years recently. OSU ranked No. 19, tied with Arkansas and Michigan with 14 arrests each.

Here’s the top 25.

Top 25 college football teams for most player arrests in the last 5 years: pic.twitter.com/lS5y2CMFcK

— Mike Rosenberg (@ByRosenberg) August 18, 2015

Rosenberg’s feed has this broken down in a variety of ways (by conference, by wins, etc.) and you should go take a gander if you’re interested. Here’s a look at all of the OSU arrests Rosenberg counted.

Thomas probably shouldn’t count and I think Barnett’s glove box was just overflowing with traffic tickets, but we’re picking nits, I suppose.

I was asked for my take on this on Twitter, and I’m not sure I have one. If there’s one to have, I suppose that it’s that I’m surprised programs like OU, Georgia, Florida and A&M rank so high on here. When you’re a big boy school like that, you don’t have to take as many risks as a Purdue or Oklahoma State on dudes with potential character issues.

The flip side of that argument is that more highly-regarded recruits are blinded by their own greatness and think they can get away with more things than, say, a James Washington who comes from a 1A school and was barely recruited. That’s not universally true, of course, but it’s one hypothesis.

All in all, you don’t want to see any teams have anybody arrested, but it’s part of it. It’s part of life. OSU having 14 arrests over five years doesn’t seem great, but it could certainly be worse.

And Gundy has handled the fallout well. Unlike Bob Stoops.