According to Fight On State, in response to the most recent off-field incident (that would be Andrew Quarless’ DUI and underage drinking episode), senior center A. Q. Shipley was heard to offer the following plaintive lamentations, according to one of FOS’ ubiquitous “observers”:

“[Center A.Q.] Shipley was [pissed],” an observer said. “He was going off in the locker room earlier this week. They thought he was going to hit someone. The locker room cleared out. He was yelling, ‘[Fucking] idiots. How many [fucking] times does it take to learn? [Fucking] grow a brain.’ ”

(All instances of censored verbiage were replaced by words like “ticked” and “bleeping” in the original FOS report. I replaced them with a more reasonable representation of the actual verbiage. Nobody in a locker room is “ticked” and no self-respecting offensive lineman would ever use the inoffensive word “bleeping” in a tirade. I left the original brackets in there because I don’t know—although I can conjecture—that’s what he actually said.)

In posing the rhetorical question, “How many times…?”, Shipley was referring to the previous, similar incident that caused Quarless to sit down for the beginning of the season last year. This is a valid question and one that might spell the end of Quarless’ career. Anyone can make one judgment error and get caught. Repeating the crime is the mark of a true idiot and scofflaw.

The first time around, this Turkey asked you all to give Quarless a break. After all, who among us didn’t engage in underage drinking at PSU?

This time, I’m talking out of the other side of my mouth. Quarless knew that he would hurt the team and himself if he got caught, and he significantly increased his chances of getting caught by driving drunk down a main thoroughfare. He could have at least had the sense to do his partying behind closed doors. He deserves to get his ass kicked off the team.

The once promising tight end might never fulfill his promise, either at PSU or beyond, in the NFL. Quarless has all but killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.

On the other hand, Shipley appears poised to become the senior leader we all hoped he would be.