So ends Chapter 2.

The woman appeals that finding. (Unlike in criminal cases, where acquitted defendants cannot be retried, in Title IX cases, accusers may appeal.) Michigan State reopens the case.

The university sends an email to Mumphery at an address he no longer looks at. He knows nothing of the appeal. This time, Michigan State holds him responsible for relationship violence and sexual misconduct.

So ends Chapter 3.

Now we turn to the consequences. In May 2017, The Detroit Free Press reports that Mumphery, a receiver for the Houston Texans and a graduate student at Michigan State, was expelled by the university because of a sexual assault. Two days later, after practice, the Texans’ coach calls him into the office: Keith, this case is a problem and we’re letting you go. Mumphery drives home to Vienna, Ga., which has a diner, fast-food joints, a single motel behind the gas station and a streetlight. He wonders what has become of his life.

Accusations of sexual assault offer perilous waters in which to swim as a reporter, an investigator, a lawyer. Sexually charged texts and a photograph, which exist in this case, can establish flirtation but do not speak to consent — the woman claims in her own lawsuit and in police reports that she was very drunk and had consumed well in excess of a dozen shots of vodka before Mumphery arrived. She insisted she could not agree to have sex. Mumphery disputes that the woman was drunk. A police report states that surveillance videos show her walking “with a steady gait” and with no trouble keeping her balance. Mumphery says that she opposed his use of a condom and that they did not have sex. The woman says she has been traumatized.

What is clear is that the consequences for Mumphery of this broken process are perilously close to that of a criminal conviction. Mumphery is boxed in a societal cell. He has not gotten a tryout with another N.F.L. team, and at 25 he sees his prime earning years as an athlete slipping by. He was an honor roll student and class president with a 1240 SAT score at his high school, and with this mark on his record, he is unlikely to gain admittance to another graduate program.