Flock Talk: Darkness on the Edge of Town

 

Back in 2013, I wrote a Flock Talk about Colt Lyerla from an angle that made some people uncomfortable. At the time, the loudest refrain was familiar: “This isn’t a football story.”

And yet, football writers were the ones telling it. Fans were the ones debating it. And without a football player’s fall from grace, the story would never have reached the light at all.

That contradiction matters.

Football gives us the stories we love—the ones College GameDay packages so well. Perseverance. Redemption. Grit. The walk-on who earns a scholarship. The kid who beats the odds. Those stories are real, and they matter. They teach teamwork, discipline, fair play, accountability, and shared purpose. They are part of why football holds such a powerful place in American culture.

But football also does something else—something less comfortable and far more important.

It forces us to confront the parts of society we prefer to ignore.

This week, we are again pushed into that space by the collapse of Sherrone Moore. Abuse of power. Infidelity. Stalking. Domestic violence. A mental health crisis unfolding in real time. This is not an abstract conversation. According to the best available data, one in three women and one in nine men experience some form of domestic violence in their lives—and those numbers are almost certainly underreported.

These things happen every day. But most of the time, they happen quietly. The manager at Best Buy who abuses his authority. The supervisor who crosses lines. The relationship that becomes controlling, then dangerous. The downward spiral no one wants to look at too closely.

Those stories are nameless and faceless—until football puts a spotlight on them.

Yes, Moore’s firing will send shockwaves through college football. A premier job opens. Staffs reshuffle. Recruiting boards scramble just after early signing day. From a purely football perspective, that matters.

But that is not the story.

The story is how power distorts behavior, how unchecked authority corrodes judgment, and how mental health crises intersect with positions of influence in ways that leave real victims in their wake. And it is here—uncomfortably, deliberately—that football gives us a lens into the human condition.

Beyond the Myth of Simple Choice

Reading Determined by Robert Sapolsky has changed how I process moments like this. Not by softening accountability. Not by excusing harm. But by stripping away the illusion that these moments emerge from nowhere.

Sapolsky’s argument is unsettling precisely because it is so thorough: by the time we reach a so-called “moment of choice,” everything that could possibly influence that moment is already in place. Neurobiology. Hormones. Stress load. Sleep deprivation. Childhood environment. Cultural reinforcement. Reward systems. Trauma. Power dynamics. Reinforcement without consequence.

That does not mean actions don’t matter. They do. Moore’s actions matter. They caused harm. Accountability is non-negotiable.

But it does mean that pretending this was simply a matter of “bad character” or “a lack of grit” is a lie we tell ourselves to feel safe.

We love grit stories because they reassure us that success—and failure—are mostly about willpower. Angela Duckworth’s work captures something real, but football exposes the limits of that framing. Grit is not evenly distributed. It is not freely chosen. It is biology plus history playing out over time.

And the same is true of collapse.

Football as a Cultural Classroom

At its best, football culture acknowledges this complexity. It doesn’t deny responsibility, but it understands context. It emphasizes structure, accountability, shared standards, and early intervention. It recognizes that discipline without support is hollow, and support without discipline is dangerous.

This is where leadership matters.

The contrast between cultures is instructive. A program built on clarity, humility, shared accountability, and psychological safety doesn’t just win games—it creates guardrails. It makes abuse of power harder to hide. It reinforces the idea that no one is bigger than the structure. It treats mental health not as a weakness to conceal, but as a reality to manage before it metastasizes.

That kind of culture doesn’t guarantee moral perfection. Nothing does. But it reduces the likelihood that warning signs are ignored, rationalized, or buried beneath success.

Football, when done right, teaches us that rules exist not to limit freedom, but to make collective excellence possible. That leadership is stewardship, not entitlement. That accountability is strongest when it is paired with understanding—not vengeance.

Accountability Without Retribution

The American instinct, when confronted with stories like this, is retribution. Fire him. Jail him. Erase him. Move on.

That instinct is understandable. Harm demands response.

But as I wrote back in 2013, when problems become this pervasive, they stop being just about individual bad choices. They expose structural failures—how we develop leaders, how we monitor power, how we address mental health, and how willing we are to intervene before damage becomes irreversible.

Accountability must remain. Victims must be protected. Consequences must exist.

But retribution alone teaches us nothing.

Football has always been a mirror. It reflects our best ideals and our worst contradictions. It shows us teamwork and ego, discipline and entitlement, structure and chaos. It gives us heroes—and reminds us that heroes are still human.

If we’re willing to look honestly, football doesn’t just entertain us. It educates us. Not through feel-good montages alone, but through the hard stories that force us to grapple with how fragile self-control really is, how dangerous unchecked power can be, and how deeply shaped we all are by forces we did not choose.

We don’t have to excuse harm to understand it.

And understanding—real understanding—is the only place where prevention begins.

I am not alone.
I am many.
I am made of all that has been. 

Pablo Neruda - “We Are Many”