If Boise State is able to beat Oregon State in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, the Broncos will be doing so without their starting quarterback. Joe Southwick was sent home last week for a violation of team rules. When he returned to Boise, Southwick told KTVB that he was banned from the Hawaii Bowl after being accused of urinating off a balcony at the team hotel.
The issue, Southwick says, is that he didn’t do it. The senior said he went out last Thursday night and witnessed a player urinating off the hotel balcony when he got back. When he woke up the next morning, he found out he had been accused of doing it.
“It just turned to finger pointing, and it ended up being three people against one person saying something, and I guess the temper tantrum of one person didn’t look good and there was no investigation,” Soutwick explained. “This was an absolute rushed decision, probably made in about 20 minutes.”
Southwick added that he has reached out to Boise State administrators and encouraged them to launch an investigation to figure out what happened. He also showed KTVB the results of a polygraph test that he took, which he said he would like to show to the school.
“I don’t want this to turn into me against Boise State,” he said. “I love Boise State. What they’ve been able to do for me these past five years, is life changing. And this situation that occurred the last five days could also be life changing, obviously for the negative for me.
“It’s just really important for myself and my family to get this cleared up and show that really the decision makers in place had a rushed decision, there was no process to properly judicate what happened. It’s really disappointing that it came to this.”
We have no way of knowing if Southwick is telling the truth, but you’d hate to see him miss the last game of his collegiate career for something he didn’t do. It’s hard to imagine that Boise State would have kicked a player off the team strictly because of finger pointing. There has to be more to the story.
H/T Dr. Saturday
