A sense of entitlement among young people is way too common. Just ask any teacher, professor, or school administrator at any level how it's evolved over the past 20 years. And it's compounded for a lot of football players. Even Saban says one of the hardest things he has to do is "un-recruit" the egos when they hit campus.
We've certainly had our share of thugs, so we can't throw a lot of rocks about recruiting them onto campus. The difference between FSU and a lot of other schools is the combination of several factors:
-- It's been going on a loooonnngg time.
-- The numbers are huge
-- There are no material consequences for the behavior
-- On the off chance that publicity (almost always from media sources outside Tallahassee) forces legal action, the players get top-flight counsel pro bono, and the local law enforcement loses interest quickly.
These are not one-off isolated incidents. It's a pattern of repeated behavior over years, if not decades. Some of this sort of stuff happens at every major program. Where FSU stands out is the severity of the violations, the number of incidents, the length of time over which they've been repeated, and the lack of consequences.
All four of the UA players who beat two students a few years ago were removed from school, not just the football team. Three of them went through the legal system. One was allowed back on the team, but only after a year of exile in JUCO. I didn't agree with allowing him back, and said so repeatedly on this forum. But that's Saban's call. I also didn't think Jonathan Taylor (the transfer from UGA who was still under indictment for problems in Athens, then got into yet another domestic incident in Tuscaloosa) should have been signed. But when he stepped out of line, he was immediately removed from school, not just the football team. So in all cases, there were consequences that involved removal from school and/or the football team either permanently or for a meaningful period of time.
Yes, Tallahassee is different. FSU and the Tallahassee PD turn a willful blind eye with a frequency and to a degree far beyond anything I know of at other college campuses.