Sunday, October 21, 2007

Non-Wake Player Notes

I forgot to cover these two news worthy items last week, and perhaps to save myself some aggravation from rehashing Saturday's game, have decided to postpone the usual "Sunday Night" notations until Monday afternoon. As for last week's news, it's a good news/bad news story.

Let's start with the bad news, because it's better to end with the good news as far as I'm concerned. It has been reported and confirmed that plebe quarterback Robby Davis will transfer from the Academy. If you're not familiar with Davis (who was on the JV team) you may recall that he was the first player of the Class of 2011 to commit to Navy last summer. A talented option quarterback from Starrs Mill, Georgia, Davis was regarded by many (including myself) as the best player in Navy's most recent recruiting class. It is being reported that Woffard and Georgia Tech have expressed interest in his services. I've never met Davis, but wish him all the best down the road.

Now for the good news, or at least the good news if your coming at this from a football perspective. Jeff Deliz, who went down for the year against Rutgers in week two, has withdrawn from school for the semester to rehab his injury. I know what your thinking, that's good news? Well, yes and no. Deliz suffered something called a "Lisfranc" fracture, which apparently is a pretty big deal, and was unable to keep up with his academic duties because of it. This means he'll need an extra semester to graduate, and, as the Washington Post is reporting, may end up petitioning the NCAA for another year of eligibility. This is something of slippery slope at the Academy for obvious reasons, but the precedent is there with players like Napoleon McCallum. From what I've read, most fans and graduates seem to think that as long as Deliz will need an extra semester to graduate, he may as well have the chance to play football if he decides that's what he wants. This shouldn't be much of a problem from the NCAA's perspective, so if he decides to pursue this course of action and is allowed to do so by the Academy he could be in a position to play next season. Remember though, this is all speculation at this point, and was brought up as a possibility after Christian Swezney inquired about it last week. While Jeff was absent at practice last week, he was in fact at the game on Saturday. We'll wait and see, but above all I hope Jeff gets healthy and does what he feels is best for him at this point in both his academic and professional careers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lets hope the Academy allows Deliz the chance to have another year of football eligibility.
While precedent has been sent -the Academy tends to not allow it to happen and thats not right.
They should be flexible when this comes up and it should not be the issue they so frown upon and have cost us the likes of an additional year for Brian Madden.
If he is there for reasons that are allowed by NCAA then he should be allowed to play.
Lets hope they get with the times dont make it uncomfortable as they did with Madden.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how much the stupid new rules imposed by the Supe contributed to Davis leaving. He was a direct entry, right? I wouldn't be shocked to see more underclassmen in all sports leave (and would be even less surprised to see a decent number of 2010 ad 2011 leave, in fact, I almost expect it).

Adam said...

Yes, Davis was direct.