Pitt Football: Mike Haywood Arrested

Well just when the coaching situation couldn't get any weirder, there's news that new coach Mike Haywood has reportedly been arrested. No, seriously.

This broke about an hour ago, but I've been waiting to see if any other new information came out before gathering some info to post on it.

NBC Affiliate in South Bend, WNDU, is reporting that former Irish offensive coordinator and, more importantly to us, new Pitt head football coach, Mike Haywood, has been arrested for domestic violence:

St. Joseph County Police say Haywood was arrested around 4 p.m. Friday at a home in the 50000 block of Hawthorne Meadow Drive.

He has a child with the woman living there.

Police say there was a custody issue and the woman attempted to leave.

As she left, police say a physical altercation broke out.

The woman told police Haywood grabbed her by the arm and neck and pushed her.

According to the police report, the woman had red marks on her neck, arms and back.

The incident reportedly took place in South Bend, Indiana. The Post-Gazette, CBSSports.com, and Tribune-Review have all confirmed or reported on it - though they also don't have a lot of details yet.

It's impossible to say what happened at this point as this has literally just been released a short time ago. But, man, this sounds awful. Haywood has yet to really even officially take the reigns yet as Dave Wannstedt still hasn't made up his mind if he wants to even coach the BBVA Compass bowl game (which, if you're counting at home, is only eight days away).

This has been such a weird year for Pitt football. High expectations, down year. We've heard about alleged assaults, a DUI/hit-and-run, the dismissal of a starter, academic issues, and now this, assuming the report is true. The difference, of course, is that all of those incidents involved students ... this one, a coach. And not only a coach, but a somewhat controversial selection that has yet to even coach a game.

The ironic part, of course, is that there's been plenty of speculation that Dave Wannstedt's record wasn't the only reason he was let go. That the university was disappointed with all of the off-field issues.

Um, yeah.

I hate to jump to conclusions this early and if this somehow turns out to not be true, someone will have a lot of 'splainin' to do. But if this is true, well, you could speculate on all sorts of things that could happen. I'd say that 2011 can't get here fast enough, but it appears we could be dealing with this for at least the early part of the New Year.

Nothing like getting off to a good start.

Lost, of course, in all this is that there's a child to think about. So before conclusions are reached and speculation runs rampant, give that some thought. And in the meantime, let's wait until we hear from one of the people involved.