Alabama WR Jermaine Burton must be held accountable by Nick Saban for postgame incident | Opinion
Falsehoods, it's often said, can travel the world before the truth can get its shoes on. There are times when a lack of context can make fools of us all, and that happens nowhere more than on social media. Snippets of audio and video with a caption, presented as a complete story, so often tell only a small piece of the truth.
Then there are other times when more context isn't needed. That's where we are with Alabama wide receiver Jermaine Burton.
He reached out and made contact with Tennessee fan Emily Isaacs with his right arm on his way out of Neyland Stadium after the Crimson Tide's 52-49 loss, and that can't be excused.
Isaacs posted the clip to TikTok, captioning it "Jermaine Burton smacking me in the head," and later confirmed to a media outlet that it was her in the video.
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She was among thousands of UT fans to storm the field in the aftermath of the Volunteers' thrilling upset. It's tough to make out much else from a far-away, low-quality video shot from the bleachers. But any missing context is only relevant to how severely Burton should be dealt with. What we know is enough to establish that he must be held to account.
We know Burton didn't reach out for some other reason and struck Isaacs by accident because if he had, Alabama coach Nick Saban wouldn't have described it as a disciplinary issue.
We know it was no incidental bump in a tight crowd because if the video is clear on anything, it's that Isaacs stepped to her left to avoid Burton, and he reached to his right to make contact.
There's no audio, but there's nothing Isaacs could have said to deserve it.
Was he attempting to knock a phone from her hand, as he appeared to do in another clip of the chaotic post-game scene? If he struck her in the head as alleged, intent doesn't matter much, either.
There's no evidence of injury that's been made public, we don't know Burton's story, and as of Wednesday, there's been no criminal complaint or charge filed. All that missing context might help inform Saban, or any other authority, on how to hold Burton accountable.
None of it, however, is relevant to whether he should be.
Reach Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread