Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer has officially become a parody of himself.

Don't let the straight face fool you. He's a good coach but an even better comic.

He promised swift, firm and fair discipline after three players were arrested following a disturbance at a local bar early Sunday morning.

He promised one thing and delivered another. Firm? Fair? How about, "convenient" and "predictable"?

The two backup players got one- and two-game suspensions. Arian Foster, the starting tailback, got a half-game suspension.

How obvious can you be?

The players throw the punches. The coach delivers the punch line.

Fulmer explained Foster's reduced sentence by pointing out that the player actually served as a peacemaker when his two teammates turned on one another in the wee hours of the morning. He neglected to mention the police account of Foster's activities, which included "pushing, yelling and cursing" another bar patron.

Maybe the coach just didn't want to bother us with the details. Or maybe he wanted to remind us that, rhetoric aside -- "zero tolerance" comes to mind -- he will always be one of the most lax disciplinarians ever to coach a college football team.

Foster's account of the incident contradicted the police report. According to him, he was just trying to keep his teammates out of trouble.

So what was the police report? Creative writing?

Never mind who pushed whom. You had three players arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and under-age drinking. You had three players who were either too drunk or too stupid to follow the instructions of policemen.

When a policeman tells you to leave, you don't start a fight or a debate. You don't referee the tough-man competition between your teammates. You leave.

Most of the bar's patrons, including other UT football players, figured that out. What did the arrestees need? A tattoo of a policeman's badge with the initials, "DWPS" (do what police say)?

The lack of respect for police is a bigger issue than the under-age drinking. And it's nothing new for UT football players. Nor was the punishment.

If tailbacks LaMarcus Coker and Montario Hardesty were both hale and hardy, perhaps Fulmer would have risked suspending Foster for an entire game. But with nationally ranked Arkansas coming up Saturday in Fayetteville, Fulmer was more concerned about his depth at running back than the image of his program.

Seven UT football players have been arrested since May. That's not a crime outbreak. That's an average year.

With each arrest, Fulmer talks tough and sentences softly. Thank goodness, he's a coach, not a judge. We've got enough criminals on the street.

I'm curious about athletic director Mike Hamilton's role in this. I'm curious if he even has a role.

Let's review the UT athletic department's record for discipline this fall. First, it reprimanded a fan for being too loud and enthusiastic at games. Then, it suspended a sportswriter for a game because he interviewed a player without going through proper channels. Finally, Hamilton called out the UT student section for vulgar cheers at the Alabama game.

He should be more concerned about his student-athletes than the students. And he should be even more concerned about how his head football coach disciplines student-athletes.

While UT's won-lost record goes up and down, its track record for discipline remains remarkably consistent. It's both alarming and amusing.

And it has left me playing UT fantasy football.

Suppose UT's starting quarterback and a backup tight end rob a bank before a big game. While the pistol-packing quarterback collects the money, the tight end waits patiently at the wheel of the getaway car.

Following their arrests, Fulmer promises -- you guessed it -- swift and firm discipline. Two days later, he announces that the tight end has been kicked off the team, but that the quarterback will be allowed to play until the judicial process runs its course.

"As fast as that tight end was driving, an innocent person could have been killed," Fulmer would tell the media. "But our quarterback convinced him to slow down. It's no telling how many lives he saved."

And the coach would say it with a straight face.