I’m not supposed to write about things like this, but here we are.

Avalanche-Journal’s Sarah Self-Walbrick details the second sexual assault allegation against former Texas Tech quarterback Jett Duffey. I suppose that we have to be somewhat careful here in that these are allegations. Duffey has denied those allegations and there have been no formal charges filed and the victim and Duffey entered into a voluntary resolution for the Title IX investigation, which required a Duffey apology.

For some history here, Duffey was suspended for the 2016 season after he was found responsible for sexual misconduct and returned in 2017. Now in March of 2019, Duffey was involved in an incident, March 9th to be exact. The victim wanted to share her story publicly which is why her name, Chloe O’Rear, is used throughout the story from the Avalanche-Journal.

On March 9, O’Rear went to a Depot Entertainment District bar with a friend where she said she had four drinks and an Adderall. She said she did not feel drunk.

As the two women were leaving the bar around 2 a.m. on March 10, they saw Duffey and two other women outside. They invited O’Rear and her friend to an after-party. O’Rear alleges Duffey pulled out a button-size bag of cocaine to encourage them to join. Duffey reportedly does not drink, noted in the 2016 Title IX investigation and by Lanehart.

The five people went with the two women to Duffey’s apartment, where O’Rear says she and Duffey both did cocaine. She said that the cocaine, which she had done before, gave her energy but did not affect her mental state.

O’Rear asked her friend for another Adderall and planned to stay up through the night and go to work the next day. Her friend did not have anymore, but O’Rear alleges Duffey said he had some. O’Rear said the pencil-eraser size pill looked like Adderall. She took it. Thirty minutes later, she said the cocaine had worn off and she felt lightheaded and hazy.

O’Rear, her friend and Duffey left the other two women’s apartment and went to O’Rear’s friend’s apartment. O’Rear said she planned to go home, but she couldn’t find her car keys that she knows she had when they left the bar. She never found the keys.

Duffey offered for O’Rear to come to his apartment around 6 a.m. Not feeling well, she went. She said she blacked out during the ride to Duffey’s place.

Later in the morning, O’Rear said she woke up in Duffey’s bed. She went to the bathroom and said she saw in the mirror that she was covered in bruises and scratches, from her neck to her legs.

O’Rear filed a Title IX complaint on March 18th and did not file a police report until May of 2019. No charges were filed by the police for lack of physical evidence.

• There’s a lot to unpack here and I’ve struggled for most of yesterday and last night as well as this morning regarding all of this. I don’t have a lot of answers. I have a lot of questions. Unfortunately, I won’t have answers because Texas Tech declined to provide a comment on Thursday.
• I want to emphasize that these are allegations. I realize that and I hope that you realize that too.
• With that being said, this is two separate sexual misconduct allegations that have been made against Jett Duffey. Duffey and his attorney, Chuck Lanehart, has said that he is innocent and that he has been cleared by Texas Tech of any Title IX allegations in both the 2017 and 2019 instances.
• The timeline of this is incredibly disturbing. The incident happened in March. Again, no police report was filed, but a Title IX complaint was filed 9 days after the incident. A police report was filed in May. This means that Duffey participated in practices and obviously the entire 2019 season with this having happened.
• Technically speaking, this case was closed on January 8, 2020, so just one month ago was this case was officially resolved by Texas Tech’s Title IX office.
• I am overcome with the feeling that someone from Texas Tech should have known when the Title IX complaint was filed in March and so long as the police report was not redacted, that someone from Texas Tech should have known then as well.
• It’s a slippery slope for me to make this statement. Saying that someone should have known something is an incredibly tough standard because you are presuming that someone did know and that’s probably not fair.
• Let’s reset. Duffey is cleared in any wrongdoing, he’s apologized as part of the 2019 Title IX allegations and so Duffey is cleared, right? I’m guessing that Tulane found out about the most recent sexual misconduct allegations and I’m also guessing that Central Michigan found out about the same thing (we probably know that they did based on the article posted by the Central Michigan student paper). If the mere allegations and actual dismissal of the Title IX case was enough for both Tulane and Central Michigan to decide to pass on Duffey, what does that say about Texas Tech? If they didn’t know anything until December and they asked him to leave, that leads to more questions.
• I’d like to think that Texas Tech can simply say that they had absolutely no idea from March 9th until January 8th. No idea about anything. Is that good enough? Is it? I don’t think that feigning any responsibility or knowledge is a good look. Right?
• This is the complicated part, which is that there were 104 players who weren’t allegedly giving girls lines of coke and allegedly giving girls a strange pill that allegedly made the unconscious. All allegedly. I keep going back to the idea that this should have been an incredibly short leash in the first place after the 2016 incident with Duffey.
• I love Texas Tech. Legitimately love this University. It has given me so much, but I will not be a part of this. I’m not sure how to compartmentalize all of this. I really need an explanation from Texas Tech and even then I’m not sure I’ll be satisfied.