A.J. Green, having just served out his four-game suspension for selling his Independence Bowl jersey to an agent or agent-like substance, was made available to the media Tuesday for questions. Beleaguered Georgia fans, you're just going to love how the NCAA fell backwards into investigating your show pony:
Georgia Fans: Need A Target For Your Misplaced Ire? Try TMZ!
Green said he was told the investigation started when the NCAA heard a rumor that he might have attended a Miami party sponsored by an agent (not Hawkins).
“I didn’t know anything about it,” Green said of the party. “When the NCAA told me about it, they said they heard it from [website] TMZ. [The NCAA] just heard it was a rumor, so they came down here and asked me.”
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“I guess when they couldn’t find [anything] on that trip, they went back and found this,” Green said.
If ever aliens were to land in America and demand to know why this fair nation should be saved from obliteration, TMZ and its ilk would be a strong argument for telling them to just torch the place. That said, Green did cop to being aware of what he was doing, so argue against the rule itself all you want, but don’t think he didn’t understand what was at stake:
The star receiver did not deny knowing that selling the jersey was against NCAA rules, saying he “didn’t really think it through” and “everybody makes mistakes in life.”
Of the four-game suspension, he said: “I did something wrong. I deserve it, a penalty for what I’d done.”
Green returns to action Saturday for a crucial road trip to Colorado, as the Dawgs try to avert a gruesome early-season slide.
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