kids will be kids.Coach Urban Meyer, the Gators accumulated numbers — of victories and accolades and championships — at dizzying rates. In six seasons, they won 65 games, two Southeastern Conference championships and two national titles.
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At least 31 arrests were made of members of the University of Florida teams coached from 2005 to 2010 by Urban Meyer.
Jamar Hornsby was among one of the players who faced charge
In recent years, though, another number has been affixed to the Meyer era. That number is 31, as in, at least 31 arrests of Florida's football players from 2005 to 2010.
Many of the charges were typical of college campuses: under-age drinking, disorderly conduct, violations of open-container laws. But other, more serious charges included aggravated stalking, domestic violence by strangulation, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and fraudulent use of credit cards, according to criminal record databases. Most of the cases never went to trial, the charges having been dropped or pleaded down.Gators' football dominance was recently highlighted when Aaron Hernandez, a starting tight end on the 2008 national championship team who later played for the New England Patriots, was accused by authorities of committing an execution-style murder in Massachusetts. While at Florida, Hernandez had run-ins with the police in Gainesville, who questioned him and three teammates after a 2007 shooting and recommended a felony battery charge against him after a fight at a restaurant (the case was not pursued).
A roster on the university's Web site lists 121 players, 41 of whom have been arrested, either in college or afterward, and sometimes both. That number included 16 players on that season's final two-deep roster, nine of whom were starters, as well as a kicker, punter and returner. Several of those players went on to the N.F.L., and one, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, later won the Heisman Trophy playing for Auburn.