Honey Badger throws away another chance

• Former LSU star Tyrann Mathieu was arrested for alleged marijuana possession
• Three other ex-LSU football players also were arrested
• Mathieu had been hoping to rejoin the team in 2013

First of all, let's dispense with the nickname. For good. He is not the Honey Badger anymore; college athlete with a colorful moniker.

He is Tyrann Mathieu; apparently a troubled young man headed nowhere fast.

Police in Baton Rouge say they've caught Mathieu with marijuana again. If they're correct, the woe to this tale is how someone with so many gifts and so many chances insists on squandering them all. This is becoming a story of utter waste, and when the subject is barely out of his teens, is that not always tragic?

Remember how big a sensation he became in 2011, and so quickly? Remember him spiffy in his platinum suit at the Heisman ceremony, all dressed up and presumably lots of places to go? The Heisman ceremony. Not many defensive backs ever see the inside of that.

The issue is not the severity of Mathieu's charge – simple marijuana possession – or lack thereof. Such a thing is hardly cause for shock in or around a college campus. Though one of the other ex-Tigers, Derrick Bryant, is charged with intent to distribute, and now we're talking a different kettle of fish.

No, it is the complete and total and self-destructive inability of one former football star to judge, to choose, to understand. To avoid what he knows to be ruining his dreams, if ever he truly had them.

Maybe he never did. Or might they just be getting lost in the smoky fog of weed?

We don't know Tyrann Mathieu. We don't know if the charges are true. We don't know if the police were right, saying that apartment was full of drug dodads and former LSU football players. A rather significant part of the 2011 almost-national championship is represented on the arrest report, including Jordan Jefferson, the man who started at quarterback last January against Alabama in the title game.

Mathieu, Jefferson and Bryant were released Friday, police said. Karnell Hatcher, a fourth former player, remained in jail.

Here's what we do know.

If Mathieu would have stayed away from the stuff, he'd be a national star today. He' be a talented defensive back who the NFL couldn't wait to meet, open checkbook in hand.

He'd be a name on the Heisman checklists. He'd be a candidate for All-American. His picture would be on TV and in newspapers and online, only it would be in an LSU football helmet, and not a mug shot.

He'd be getting ready to play Alabama again. He'd be the Honey Badger again. Football folk hero in the worshipful land of the SEC, and how many people out there would almost die for a chance at that?

Even the first failed drug tests would not have stopped him. Or getting kicked off. He could have come back. We are all suckers for narratives of redemption and second chances – especially when the player involved can make plays like he could in Saturday prime time. Had he fallen, gotten back up, righted himself, said all the necessary things about learning his lesson, and then retaken his post, the roar would have been mighty in Death Valley.

Supposedly, he was on the prescribed path. Getting help, and back in school. A return to football was the carrot. Les Miles once said Mathieu would never be rejoining the LSU program. But somewhere along the way, he stopped saying never. The door was ajar. The chance was there for Honey Badger II, back better – and cleaner – than ever.

Surely, he understood how straight and narrow the road had to be. Surely.

And now this.

If the charge is true, there is nothing simple about this simple possession. It means the opportunities he had do not mean anything to him. It means football and the LSU team do not mean anything to him. It means a future vast and rich in so many ways does not mean anything.

Or if they do, it means he does not have the ability to honor and keep them. To stop himself from throwing it all away. That would be saddest of all.

So no more Honey Badger. To call him that is too big of a bow to yesterday. This is about today. And today doesn't look very good.