Two of Cedric Benson’s fellow UT alums weighed in with their thoughts about Benson’s arrest while boating on Lake Travis in Texas.

Ricky Williams told the Austin American-Statesman that he was invited to go along with Benson on the ill-fated voyage. He regrets passing up on the trip because “I find I have a calming influence on people I’m around.”

I think Ricky may be guilty of using some transitive reasoning about what calms people when he’s around but at least he’s not condemning Benson before his day in court. That task is left to Earl Campbell.

He told the same newspaper that Benson made a “dumb mistake” on the day in question. “I think at some point you have to stand up and take responsibility and realize that you not only represent Cedric Benson and the Chicago Bears and your family. It’s bigger than that,”Campbell added.

We’ve been down this road with Benson before. His general manager Jerry Angelo accused him of putting himself in a position to be a victim as did Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times. There are at least two sides to the story, though, and none of his detractors are any more enlightened to what actually went down than we are.  If Benson’s telling the truth, he took no less responsibility for his actions than any of the rest of us.