He's a 20-year old college kid who went drinking. Most 20-year old college kids go drinking. He had too much to drink; again, it's not like he's the only 20-year old kid to drink too much. From what we can tell from the articles and police reports, he was sufficiently drunk that he didn't even know where he was, then he punched the ND security officers. Usually, the University bends over backwards to keep ND students away from the South Bend police, so I imagine he was in pretty bad shape. I wonder if he threw hard punches or if he was so drunk he had nothing on them (he's big enough he could do some damage if he wanted to and was functional), but in his drunken state I'm certain he wasn't thinking clearly.
He screwed up, but does the football team, and the University, want to wreck his whole life over it? Assuming there is no pattern here with him, I'd lean toward getting him counselling, enrolling him in AA, and making him commit to community service, but I'd try not to kick him off the team or out of the University if I could help it. It seems to me it would be easier to show him some mercy than it would be if a starting player were involved. Of course, he would get no more chances.
Maybe I'm too soft, but the bottom line, to me, is that he's a kid who screwed up. If he agrees that this is a teaching moment, I'd give him one more chance.