Harris Gone
- Thread starter Legs94
- Start date
Looks like David Eickholt, the beat writer for 24/7, was 100% wrong; Harris is not opting out. INSTEAD, he’s dealing with an injury.
So, I guess Harris is not a loser after all.
The media should be embarrassed.
The full 8 paragraphs of the tweet:
Matt Weitzel, Associate AD for Strategic Communications, provides further information on Cade McNamara and Jermari Harris not playing at Maryland, and saying the hope is both play against Nebraska:
"Cade McNamara has not been cleared to play against Maryland. His status was a topic of discussion during Tuesday’s weekly news conference. In reviewing the transcript and the Q & A, Coach Ferentz misstated that Cade had been cleared to play. He had been cleared to practice.
Q. Cade being back at the top of the depth chart, has he been cleared, and if so --
KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, I wrote that on Sunday. He practiced Sunday. Everything is cloudy right now. That's kind of our forecast. It clearly is cloudy right now. Everything is. We'll just take it day by day and see who can go.
Q. I wanted to get some clarity with Cade. You said he practiced Sunday. Did he have a setback or is he still in that process of coming back?
KIRK FERENTZ: Still processing back. He has been cleared to play, and whether or not he can play effectively or not, we'll see. We'll just see how the week goes. But we're prepared for anything, quite frankly.
The second player of interest is Jermari Harris, who will not play in Saturday’s game due to a medical issue.
We hope all of our student-athletes can play next week in our regular season finale at Kinnick Stadium; however, a player’s health and wellbeing are always our top priority."
My thoughts exactly. Lifetime Hawk fan. Season tickets for 30+ years and the passion has waned under the pay to play (or not play) system. I see it getting worse before some degree of sanity returns. After much debate I anted up for the Swarm this year. Done with that. Have to miss today’s game, but won’t make any serious attempt to watch. Probably blow off Black Friday in the cold. It saddens me, but that’s where I’m at.
As much as I hate what collegiate athletics had become, I’ll still watch today and be in the stands next week.
Not looking forward to freezing my rear end off (yes, at age 66 I’m old), but sacrifices must be made!
Associate AD for strategic communications? We have one of those? Job title itself makes me skeptical.
I would like to learn more about the specifics of how players come to be “unavailable” for games. Can a player be cleared by medical staff but still hold himself out? I would think players need to have this power; yet I could also see how that power could be abused.
We know there are times when athletes have been injured, but have still played. Like Hannah Steulke on the WBB team last year. Or Jay Higgins today against Maryland (I heard the announcers say he didn’t practice all week.)
I thought it was interesting that the statement from the SID went out of its way to include a comment about the health and wellness of players being a top priority. It’s the type of thing you might include if there was a question about players being pressured to play when maybe they didn’t want to.
It’s not hard for me to believe that McNamara and Harris are, indeed, injured. But I also know a few other things are true:
- KF listed Cade at the top of the depth chart and said he was cleared to play (SID later said he misspoke)
- In many other cases, athletes have played while injured.
- These last two games aren’t particularly meaningful, and there has been a movement in college football for players to opt out of “meaningless” games.
In the end, as is so often case, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
