Auburn Football: Zeke Pike's Departure Indicates Gene Chizik Is Fed Up

Auburn's "quarterback of the future" is no longer in Auburn.

According to Charles Goldberg of AL.com, the true freshman was sent home for the rest of the summer following an arrest early Sunday morning for public intoxication. Pike was booked at the Lee County Detention Center and released on $300 bond.

Sent home for being drunk in public?

That seems a bit excessive. 

If that was the norm, you'd have hundreds of college students spending the night in drunk tanks across the SEC every night.

But Pike is different.

There were already plenty of red flags on Auburn quarterback Zeke Pike before he even signed his Letter of Intent. 

According to Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News, Pike was suspended for the first and last games of his senior season at Dixie Heights High School in Crestview Hills, Ky. He also was thrown out of a 7-on-7 tournament before his senior season for throwing a football at an official, according to Goldberg.

Those are red flags, but Pike enrolled at Auburn in January with the opportunity for a fresh start. Apparently, things didn't change. Goldberg reported that this isn't the first off-the-field incident for Pike.

What were those off-the-field incidents? 

That remains to be seen, but it's clear that whatever they were, Pike's arrest over the weekend was the straw that broke the camel's back. 

When you sign that letter of intent, you wear that logo 24/7/365, whether that logo is actually on your clothes or not. Fair or unfair, football players are held to a higher standard, and it appears that Pike wasn't ready for that responsibility.

The last thing that head coach Gene Chizik and the Auburn program needs is this kind of headache, and it's probably better for both parties that they spend some time apart.

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