A University of Missouri football player confirmed a video allegedly showing Maty Mauk snort a line of white powder was in fact the Tigers' quarterback.
The video surfaced on Twitter with a message naming Mauk as the person taking the drugs, but the MU football player told The St. Louis Dispatch the footage is two years old. Asking to remain nameless, the football player said Mauk has "has been clean for a while" after getting his act together over last year's offseason.
But Mauk's three suspensions since the start of the football season tell a different story. Citing unnamed sources, The Dispatch learned Mauk's first suspension in late Sept. was for a failed drug test. After missing four games, Mauk was reinstated on Oct. 25, but was suspended for the remainder of the season a week later.
The Dispatch learned he got into a fight outside a downtown bar just hours after apologizing to his teammates for the first suspension. It is not clear if alcohol was involved in the altercation, but then-head-coach Gary Pinkel indicated the suspension was for Mauk not meeting certain expectations.
Pinkel did not disclose specifics for Mauk's two suspensions, but emphasized that was due to his own personal policies.
Following Pinkel's retirement, one of the first major decisions Barry Odom made as head coach was to reinstate Mauk to the team. He was then placed on another indefinite suspension after the video surfaced online. The school is still investigating its validity.
"We are currently gathering information regarding the video in question," Odom and MU athletic director Mack Rhoades said in a statement obtained by CBS Sports. "This is an issue we take very seriously and one that will not be tolerated within our program. We will take appropriate action once we have all the facts. In the interim, Maty Mauk has been indefinitely suspended from the Mizzou football program."
