UT Players Begging for Pizza Money

It will be interested to see how this plays out. The lawyer says that he doesn't think Griffin and Taylor are suspects and that the incident was just "testosterone-charged moment of trash talk."

Police say that Griffin was begging for pizza money on the street and Mac Brown says that players who get in trouble probably won't play.

You know this whole thing has got to be giving Brown ulcers.

The attorney advising Texas football players Cedric Griffin and Ramonce Taylor in a police investigation into two alleged assaults – one on Sept. 4 and another on Dec. 10 – said Sunday neither one had anything to do with the September incident.

Austin attorney Ken Oden said he believes Griffin and Taylor have been questioned by the Austin Police Department in connection with the alleged Sept. 4 incident simply to elicit information about a separate possible suspect.

"To my knowledge, the suspect in the Sept. 4 matter is not a football player," Oden said. "The people being asked questions with regard to that alleged incident are football players and non-football players who might have information with regard to that incident."

Oden said he is concerned about what has been reported after a statement released Friday by the Austin Police Department.

The release said individuals "in the UT athletics program" were being investigated in connection with an aggravated assault involving an automatic handgun on Sept. 4 and in connection with an assault and robbery in the Sixth Street area on Dec. 10.

Oden said Griffin and Taylor are in no way connected to the Sept. 4 matter but were both on Sixth Street in the early hours of Dec. 10, after the Texas football banquet. At about 3 a.m. on Dec. 10, according to police, a person was punched, kicked and robbed.

Oden said the alleged incident was nothing more than a "testosterone-charged moment of trash talk." Police are investigating whether Griffin was asking people on the street for $5 for pizza and whether a group of men who came across Griffin took offense to it.

Oden, who met with Taylor and his mother, Ramona Clark, on Sunday to help provide more information to the police, said he believes Taylor was nothing more than a bystander in the exchange.

Texas coach Mack Brown said Friday during a news conference, "I've told the players, 'If you get in trouble, you probably won't play.' And what an awful thing for you to make a mistake, a 15-second mistake, and cost yourself a chance to play or win a national title."