No more chances for Jamar Hornsby

August 3, 6:49 PMCollege Sports ExaminerJacob Osterhout

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  Hornsby just couldn't seem to stay out of trouble.

Jamar Hornsby is a very good football player.

But the gifts that the talented safety maintained on the playing field failed to keep him out of trouble in real life.

Now Hornsby is all out of chances.

On Friday, Mississippi coach Houston Nutt, who gave Hornsby another shot at a DI college football career after he was kicked off of the Florida Gators, re-released the troubled player when a Oktibbeha County Grand Jury indicted him on an aggravated assault charge in connection with a March incident in the parking lot of a Starkville McDonald's.

The incident occurred after the six-foot-three, 215 lbs. Hornsby and two friends were rear-ended by another car while waiting in the drive-thru lane at McDonald's. During the ensuing argument, Hornsby and his friends allegedly pulled the victim out of his car, took money from his wallet and then beat him senseless with brass knuckles.

Brass knuckles, in case you were wondering, are illegal in Mississippi, but as Chris Low at ESPN aptly points out, "The indictment, however, does not mention that weapon, (the brass knuckles) and Hornsby has denied using them, according to his attorney."

Regardless of the instruments used in the fight, Nutt had previously stood by his defensive back, saying that he would let the legal process play out before making a decision, but Friday's felony indictment was too much for the Ole Miss coach to handle.

“I am releasing Jamar Hornsby and he will not be a member of our football team,” Nutt said. “We wish him nothing but the best in the future.”

As previously stated, this is the second time that Hornsby has been kicked off of a college football program. Back in May of 2007, after his freshman season at Florida, he was arrested for making 70 fraudulent charges worth almost $3,000 on a gas credit card that belonged to a UF student who had died in a motorcycle accident. (To make matters even sicker, the UF student was actually the deceased girlfriend of teammate Joe Haden.) 

Hornsby pleaded no contest to four misdemeanor charges of fraudulent credit card use, was put on probation, and went on to star at East Mississippi Community College, where he was a NJCAA second team All-American. His performance at the junior college level caught Nutt's eye and earned Hornsby a second chance at Ole Miss. A second chance he squandered on a fight in a McDonald's parking lot.

And so ends the inglorious career of Jamar Hornsby, who was given two chances to play SEC football, which, apparently, was one chance too many.