Texas Tech football: Matt Wells releases statement on lawsuit allegations

Friday, Texas Tech football coach Matt Wells made an official statement about recent allegations that he allowed a former player at Utah State to remain on his team in spite of multiple reports that the player had sexually assaulted multiple women.

One day after a Daily Beast article claiming that Matt Wells did not properly handle allegations of sexual assault against one of his players at Utah State, the Texas Tech football head coach released a statement defending his actions.

In an official statement, Wells points out that the player, Torrey Green, had finished his playing career in 2015, months prior to the January of 2016 meeting between coach and player which was mentioned in the Daily Beast article.

In that article, author Olivia Messer makes it a point to note that Green was allowed to remain part of the Utah State football program after the meeting with Wells.  However, given that he was out of eligibility, he was no longer subject to any actions by Wells or the Utah State football program.

"“I am well aware that I have a responsibility to report any possible Title IX issues.  It is the Title IX Office’s responsibility to investigate an allegation so it would have been complete wrong for me to have done so,” Wells said in his statement, which was tweeted out by multiple sources including Shehan Jeyarajah of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football."

Of course, this statement did not exactly put the issue to bed.  While Wells is correct in pointing out that his meeting with Green did not occur until after the former linebacker had exhausted his eligibility, it still leaves plenty of questions left unanswered.

Chief among them is why the meeting did not take place earlier.  It is fair to criticize Wells and the entire Utah State administration for waiting to take action for so long.

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If Messer’s claims that a series of accusations against Green were made to university officials between 2013-15, why was no action taken prior to 2016?  Of course, Green had not been convicted at the time (in March, he was sentenced to at least 26 years in prison for six counts of sexual assault) but college football players are frequently suspended from their team for much less.

In fact, Texas Tech football suspended Jett Duffey in 2017 and DeShawn Corprew was removed from the Texas Tech basketball team this August for Title IX allegations.  Ultimately, there is a tremendous gray area when it comes to the timing of when Wells learned of these charges.

What we do know is that while at Texas Tech, Wells was swift to remove players from his team such as DT Joe Wallace and RB Da’Leon Ward for reasons other than (and we must assume less egregious than) a Title IX investigation.

We would all like to think that as soon as a player faces sexual assault charges, he would at least be removed from the team until the completion of the investigation.  Of course, that could often take months or even more than a year but in the end, it would seem like that would certainly beat having to face the public relations nightmare that often arises when situations like this come to light.

Removing such a player from the football team would (permanently or temporarily) not ensure the safety of the school and the community, only removing him from the university would potentially do that.  But it would send a much-needed message that the program prioritizes public safety over winning.

It is hard to fathom that Wells was unaware of the charges against Green until 2016.  After all, Kliff Kingsbury knew that Jett Duffey, Quan Shorts, Des Smith, and Christian Taylor had been arrested for an incident outside Bash Riprocks in 2018 almost immediately.

"“One student who was allegedly raped by Green in October 2014 reported it to a professor and to the school’s Title IX Office, but the school “failed to investigate” the report, according to the federal lawsuit,” writes Messer.  “In January 2015, another student who was sexually assaulted by Green reported it to local police and to her dorm supervisor, who notified the Utah State Title IX Office, the complaint claims. In June 2015, Green sexually assaulted another student, who reported it to two university agencies in October, including the Title IX Office, the lawsuit states.”"

That timeline puts Green in the middle of his playing career further painting Wells in a poor light.  While it was ultimately the responsibility of the school’s Title IX office, a failure to act is no excuse.  If Wells did, in fact, know about these charges, as it would seem logical that he did, even if he was not criminally or contractually negligent in his lack of action, it would seem like he was morally negligent in the way he decided to handle this situation.