Last September, Oklahoma freshman running back Joe Mixon punched a woman at a local Norman restaurant.

The security footage from the restaurant was never made available to the general public, but the Norman police allowed members of the media to watch the video of the incident at the Norman Investigations Center.

At the showing, reporters, whom were not allowed to record the footage, saw Mixon punch an intoxicated woman in the face. The victim then fell back on the floor and would remain there for 40 seconds before she was able to pull herself up back in her chair with blood gushing from her mouth.

A year later, Mixon is back on the Sooner’s roster.

It’s an all too familiar story that college football fans have become accustomed to. A player gets charged with assaulting a woman, but just a few months later, they’re suiting up on Saturdays.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Florida State quarterback De’Andre Johnson was arrested for punching a woman in a Tallahassee bar. But the video of him socking a woman in the face became public and he was quickly kicked off the team by head coach Jimbo Fisher.

But Fisher’s running back, Dalvin Cook was suspended indefinitely as he too was arrested for punching a woman in the face at a local bar. There is no video of the incident.

Same crime, different punishment.

What’s becoming hard for many college football fans to understand is: why are any of these guys, who are publicly, and privately, abusing women allowed to remain on a roster, or for that matter, set foot on campus?

And more specifically, where do coaches draw the line between an automatic dismissal and a “he can learn from this” offense?

The answers aren’t really that complex:

1. There’s no NCAA rule that demands college coaches to dismiss players charged with domestic assault.
2. Is there a video?

Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops addressed the issue at Big 12 Media Days last week when asked about the incident involving Mixon. Stoops started off his response by saying that there is no place for violence towards women, but went on to say that the University of Oklahoma’s job to help players who beat women.

“We also feel that, being an educational institution and the age of these young men, they deserve an opportunity to [comeback], and it’s our job to help them,” said Stoops. “But they also know that we have some very high standards for them to meet, and if they’re not met, then they won’t be with us any longer.”

Stoops, who is regarded as one of the best college football coaches in America, is basically saying domestic violence is a “two strikes you’re out” policy, no pun intended.

Like Stoops, Iowa State head coach Paul Rhoads had to discipline a player who was arrested for hitting a woman.

Iowa State defensive lineman Devlyn Cousin was charged with simple serious domestic assault in December after his girlfriend called 911 and said he pushed her on the ground. The charge was later reduced to simple domestic assault and he is now back on the Cyclone’s roster after being suspended indefinitely.

When asked about how to deal with players who have domestic violence charges brought upon them, Rhoads said the program has to look at the extremity of the incident and realize that everyone makes mistakes.

“I think in the process of–whether it’s our own program or other people’s programs or determining transfers, it’s knowing the entire story that’s associated with it, how extreme it is and realizing that everybody in life makes mistakes,” Rhoads said. “If people weren’t forgiven for certain mistakes, they would have no chance in this world. No chance.”

Showing up late to practice is a mistake.

Smoking weed with your buddies is a mistake.

Drinking at a bar underage is a mistake.

Punching a woman isn’t a mistake.

A mistake is an accident, a lapse in judgment, something that won’t intentionally harm another person– not physically abusing a woman.

Men should know by the time they’re old enough to go to college that violence against not only a woman, but anyone, is wrong. And it shouldn’t be the duty of any University to help college-aged men to learn to stop punching people– that’s something children should be taught at an early age. Those men, who don’t know that hitting women is wrong, shouldn’t be able to stay enrolled in any college, or for that matter, stay on a full-ride football scholarship.

That’s not to say some people are not more prone to commit acts of violence against women due to learned behaviors. Many student-athletes come from broken homes and rough neighborhoods where they’ve been exposed to domestic violence their entire lives. But that doesn’t mitigate violent behavior towards women–they know better. Domestic violence is something that’s being talked about enough in the mainstream enough for those who grew up with it to know that both inherently wrong and an issue in today’s society.

But, even though domestic violence has become an increasingly more talked about issue in the world of sports ever since the video of now-former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking out his fiancée in an elevator surfaced, it seems like the coaches aren’t listening.

If coaches were paying attention, they would dismiss players who hit women– not pass them off to the University counseling center for a few months.

If there really is no place for domestic violence, they’re shouldn’t be any room for domestic abusers in college football.

While there some coaches may believe that domestic violence isn’t bad enough to warrant dismissal, Texas head coach Charlie Strong said he believes otherwise.

“A lot of times [coaches] think, ‘Well I can help him.’ But are they helping him?” Strong said in an ESPN interview on Wednesday. “If you see a young man with issues, you have to surround him with enough people to help change his life. If you can’t surround him with enough people to help change his life, you can say all you want, but the kid is never going to change.”

After kicking off nine players off his team before his first season as the head coach of the Longhorns, Strong became known in the college football world as one of the sports toughest disciplinarians. But the point he makes shouldn’t be considered extreme.

Do some guys eventually change their ways after facing punishments? Sure. But correcting violent behavior towards women should not be part of the job for college football coaches or an obligation for Universities.

In May, the SEC passed a rule that no player who has a record of domestic abuse can transfer to a school in the conference.

The policy is a step in the right direction, but even if every conference passed this rule, it doesn’t send a clear enough message.

If the NCAA wants to help prevent student-athletes from hitting women, they’re needs to be policies that don’t allow college coaches to take back a player who beat his girlfriend last season.

Over the course of the last two weeks during conference media days, coaches made it clear that there’s no place on their team for domestic violence.

But if they actually believe that, then there is no place for domestic abusers, either.