What’s tougher than Big 12 defenses? Well, a lot of things, judging by the stats compiled by a number of Big 12 South quarterbacks this season. Chief among them, however, is the prospect of facing air-tight child abuse charges, exactly the scenario that former Kansas State running back Leon Patton is staring right in the face after a Friday arraignment.

(Patton’s grip on his son was looser than his grip on the ball.)

According to the ASSOCIATED PRESS, Patton will face the charge in court on Jan. 26 after police determined that Patton “unlawfully and feloniously and intentionally shook,” a two-month old infant July 15 at his Manhattan, Kansas house. That infant just so happens to be his son.

Evidently Patton just never got the whole, “Don’t shake babies!” message, which is pretty inexcusable. It’s not exactly a hard message to get through one’s skull.

This wasn’t exactly the first time that Patton ran afoul of the law in the prior 12 months, either. Not only did he shirk paying traffic tickets (Hey! Who needs to pay traffic tickets when you run for the football team! You can outrun the cops!), he also was stupid enough to steal video games from a WalMart, where they not only have in-store surveillance cameras, they have regional surveillance audits and a plethora of electronic security, too.

Of course, Patton isn’t the only one whose paid a price for his indiscretion. As soon as the incident was reported to police, Patton was suspended indefinitely from the Wildcats. That essentially torpedoed their season, leading to the resignation of coach Ron Prince (and subsequent return of program architect and certified old man Bill Snyder) and yet another point of frustration for the NAACP, as an African-American head coach left the ranks of a major I-A program.

So, are we saying that Patton essentially undermined some of the hard-fought gains made by his race in a cutthroat profession? Essentially, yes. Of course, that’s a drastic overexaggeration. What Patton really did was show that he’s an incredibly flawed human being who needs a lot of self introspection and personal growth. Luckily for him — and for the rest of society — there’s probably 31 months in a state-run institution with his name on it to achieve just that.