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Before he became a star safety and Super Bowl champion in the NFL, Tyrann Mathieu was one of the best players in all of college football in his time with LSU Tigers.
Mathieu, a four-star recruit out of New Orleans in the class of 2010, played in all 13 games for the Tigers as a true freshman and was named the Defensive Player of the Game in the Cotton Bowl Classic against Texas A&M.
He built upon that momentum in 2011, winning the Chuck Bednarik Award as the best defensive player in college football and finishing fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
However, in August of 2012, just prior to his junior season, Mathieu was dismissed from the LSU program after failing multiple drug tests. He returned to LSU one month later, but was arrested on October 25, 2012 for possession of marijuana.
Mathieu did not play a single game in 2012, and declared for the NFL Draft following the season. Now, in a recent podcast appearance, the three-time Pro Bowler explained the extreme lengths he went to in order to avoid being dismissed.
Tyrann Mathieu Tried To Drink Bleach To Pass Drug Test At LSU
On the latest episode of his In The Bayou podcast with his childhood best friend Tyrell McCall, Mathieu went into detail about why his time at LSU came to an end.
As part of the discussion, he explained the various ways he tried to avoid failing drug tests.
“A couple tests before I realize they was gonna kick me out of school, I’m sitting in a circle and I’m on Google trying to figure out, ‘man, how the f— do I pass this test? These folks keep threatening me,’ Mathieu said.
“And I’m just scrolling, scrolling. And I come across some s— that said just put some bleach in the [bottle] top… and put it in your Coca-Cola.
“And so I did that, and I’m like ‘yo what the f—?’ Like it felt like my whole insides was just erupting, you know what I’m saying? I end up throwing that s— up. At that point, I was like man, f— it I ran out of tricks. I don’t know what to do.
“I remember sitting in front of that building man, with a f—ing cap full of bleach in a Coke bottle. I thought that was gonna save my life. It didn’t, it backfired.’
Thankfully, Mathieu avoided any serious form of poisoning. Drinking bleach, even in small amounts, can prove lethal. In this case, it just made Mathieu remarkably sick.
He went on to become a third-round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals. Mathieu played 12 seasons in the NFL, making three All-Pro teams, and winning Super Bowl 54 with the Kansas City Chiefs.