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Well this is definitely the type of news you hate reporting. Just a short while ago news began breaking out of Dothan that Auburn Senior Defensive Back Jonathon Mincy was arrested on 2nd degree marijuana charges. It appears he was a passenger in a speeding vehicle and during a search of the vehicle marijuana was discovered near him in the back seat.
Mincy has been a mainstay in Auburn's defensive backfield since his freshmen year when he started four games and appeared in thirteen. He had 56 tackles for Auburn last year on defense. He is a senior leader of the defense and has been picked as either 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Team pre-season All-SEC depending on which publication you look at. Seeing this arrest is obviously disappointing of someone with so much experience and someone who is expected to be a leader of the team. What makes it worse is this arrest coming so soon after Mincy joined other teammates at a D.A.R.E. Camp to speak.
Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, the question becomes "what next?" Mincy has not been a player known for off-field issues that I am personally aware of. The facts that are known right now cannot lead to anyone definitively saying that he owned the marijuana in question or whether he had been smoking it. Let's not forget that there were three other people in the vehicle with him. I'm obviously sunshine pumping with those statements, but it's with the intention of pointing out how we cannot jump to conclusions so quickly with so little information known. More facts will become available very soon, I'm sure. And I'm confident Gus Malzahn will get all the facts before he makes a decision. As it currently stands I would suspect no more than a suspension of a few games, though given Mincy's position as someone expected to be a leader on this year's team, I am sure whatever happens it will not be pleasant for him. At the least I suspect he and Ryan Russell will be very close companions for the foreseeable future.
We'll update this story more as it develops.