 Marc MorehouseHi, I'm Marc Morehouse. I've covered sports for more than 15 years, mostly in Eastern Iowa. I've had Hayden Fry [...] |
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Johnson dismissed from Iowa
RB position takes another turn; PSU RB a possiblity
Iowa's De'Andre Johnson covers the ball as he runs through a gap in Indiana defenders during the second half of their game at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011, in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa won, 45-24. (SourceMedia Group News/Jim Slosiarek)
After a pair of run-ins with law enforcement last week, running back De’Andre Johnson was dismissed from the Iowa football team Wednesday, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said in a statement.
“I am disappointed that things didn’t work out better for De’Andre,” Ferentz said in a release. “We wish him all the best moving forward.”
Johnson was suspended from team activities Sunday after after University Heights police said he failed to pull over after speeding last Saturday. That entanglement came just two days after he was cited on suspicion of disorderly house on July 26 after Iowa City police were called out to reports of a loud party at his home.
A telling element in this is the timing. Iowa players finished summer conditioning on Thursday and are off until fall camp opens Friday. Incoming freshmen reported to Iowa City on Wednesday morning.
Johnson, a sophomore from Miami, Fla., who redshirted in 2010, saw action last fall in four games, rushing for 79 yards on 18 carries.
Ferentz has said Iowa will use every available running back on the roster. With Johnson’s departure, sophomore Damon Bullock is the last healthy running back on the roster with a carry in a Big Ten game. He was listed No. 1 in the preseason depth chart. Ferentz has said his skill set is geared more toward the passing game.
Iowa also has incoming freshmen Greg Garmon and Barkley Hill. Garmon was arrested and eventually charged with possession of drug paraphernalia in his hometown of Erie, Pa. Ferentz and Iowa athletics director Gary Barta said last week that it is considered strike one in Iowa’s student-athlete code of conduct. A first strike doesn’t call for a suspension from competition.
Hill, a 6-foot, 215-pounder, rushed for 6,127 yards and 89 TDs at Cedar Falls High School. He’s been in Iowa City since June working through Iowa’s summer conditioning program.
Also, junior walk-on Andre Dawson, a former Cedar Rapids Washington prep, could factor. He rushed for 4,885 yards and 64 TDs in his career at Washington. Dawson committed to UNI coming out of high school, but then transferred to Iowa Western Community College, where he rushed for 263 yards on 45 carries.
Sophomore Jordan Canzeri suffered a torn ACL this spring, but his rehab is progressing and the door remains open for a return at some point this season.
“We will see,” Ferentz said Friday. “He is doing well. We will probably be conservative on that one. You never want to say never.”
Penn State signee Akeel Lynch, a player Iowa recruited heavily before he signed with PSU in February, also is a possibility. He is in a summer school semester at Penn State until Aug. 8. The Nittany Lions start practice Aug. 6. That is the deadline for Penn State players to transfer if they want to play at their new school this season.
Lynch would have to decide sometime Sunday or before or not participate in Penn State practices to be free to move this season.
Lynch, who rushed for 2,132 yards and 30 TDs last season for St. Francis High School in Athol, N.Y., had 11 offers and took three visits, Iowa, Penn State and Boston College. So, there is an existing relationship between Iowa and Lynch.
During last week’s Big Ten media days, Iowa athletics director Gary Barta acknowledged that an unnamed Penn State player contacted Iowa. Sources confirmed that player was Lynch.
“Once [the NCAA] opened it up, our approach was whatever we do, let’s do it the right way,” Barta said. “We’ve been approached by one of the student-athletes. Kirk called Bill [first-year Penn State coach Bill O'Brien] and said, ‘Hey, I just want you to be aware of this.’ We’re not going to be aggressively recruiting, but we will take the calls and see where it goes.”
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At this point, the only that that’s surprising about this is that I’m surprised by this. AIRBHG’s hunger is insatiable.
The only way I’m going to be surprised by Iowa running back anymore is if Silver Surfer lines up there this fall.
So… when are we officially retiring the running back position at Iowa? Maybe take a sabbatical for a decade or two, go Greg Davis 5 wide and problem fixed.
Marc, is this possibility related to a decision made by one Akeel Lynch? It seems odd that he would be dismissed for these two instances alone. Something isn’t right there.
So, when is James Morris gonna get some carries? Funny thing is I’m only half joking.
I wonder about Lynch. He’s 50-50 as far as I know. Deciding Sunday or before. Does lack of a definitive statement either way mean anything? Maybe only to the desperate, of which I count myself.
Allow me to break this down, correct me if I’m wrong: In just the last year, ONE year…
Coker leaves, McCall leaves, De’Andre Johnson leaves, Canzeri tears ACL, Malloy legal trouble – loses scholarship, Garmon gets picked up for pot, Bullock switches back to RB from his WR experiment, Andre Dawson walks on (who had Iowa/Wisky other Big Ten scholarship offers before he chose UNI? Don’t get that one) and Jason White doesn’t come back.. Where art thou Paki O’Meara?
I mean seriously Pat Harty.. I mean AIRBHG, go bother someone else, like OMHR or Urban Meyer.
Tangled web.
Malloy as an RB? I’m thinking receiver there, unless he blossoms in the weightroom, which is possible. Wouldn’t put a definition on him yet.
Comes down to sound decision making off the field. Who controls that? The players making the decisions. Only so much babysitting coaches can do. I know that’s a facile answer, but it’s also the most logical.
Oh I absolutley, 100% agree with you about the players making decisions; just part of being a 19 year old. Hopefully, Barkley Hill breaks the chain, but again Coker was pretty much the ideal student-athlete and.. look how that turned out. It’s just such an oddity (which has been talked about to death) by one position group having so much turmoil, ya know?
You’re probably right with Malloy as a WR, for some reason I was thinking Wegher-esque type body, probably not on that level athletically speaking however.
Marc, I may be WAY OFF base here (probably am), but it seems like with the Iowa program lately, timing of offenses are almost just as costly as the actual offense itself. Example: ARob, his last straw was getting caught with pot. Yes, he did give Kirk some “academic indegestion”, but really the accelerant was the DJK incident. I think without that he probably stays and do you see an OSU, MSU, etc. kicking him off for that? I’m not so sure. People have stayed on teams for worse. Never mind MSU wouldn’t have.. Chris L. Rucker’d.
Johnson had two issues very close together, by themselves, a year apart, probably not career ending; and honestly disorderly house is a joke, but 60 in a 25 is dumb, but not fatal to his schollie IMO. It just seems like Barta/University is just trying contain potential PR debacles as partial reasons lately. Especially with Coker, that one still has me perplexed. The leash is definitely short..
So..Greg Garmon can get caught with a bunch of pot and other drug paraphernalia but DeAndre Johnson gets booted for a eluding charge?
Um…ok??
Not hard to understand…clearly more going on than we know,,,,pretty cut and dried.
Chad
Disorderly house on top of eluding. Two legal scrapes in three days.
How do you interpret that? Do you weigh it with Garmon’s paraphernalia charge? Case by case?
By all accounts, Iowa players were done with summer conditioning Wednesday or Thursday with practice opening this Friday. These actions say priorities were skewed. Garmon’s margin for error is nil, I would guess.
First off, I’m willing to bet that several factors that we know nothing about figure into the fact that Johnson was dismissed.
- First off, he’s a kid who’s had every opportunity to make a splash when we’ve had ridiculously little competition at the RB spot. To me, that goes beyond any lingering ACL issues that he might have had. Rather, that is far more suggestive of a high level of immaturity and a lack of focus.
- Not only did Johnson have 2 minor offenses during an alarmingly brief window of time, but he also lied to police in the process (thereby producing a more serious offense). Ferentz has a pretty consistent track record of being more lenient on guys who take ownership of their stupidity … and being far more harsh to guys who lie about or make unsubstantiated excuses for their stupidity.
- When players misbehave, Ferentz tends to put them on a pretty short leash. Not surprisingly, most young guys don’t like being “controlled” in such a way and they react to the short leash in a rather negative fashion. As I recall, B.J. Travers and Anthony Bowman were each guys who were put on “short leashes” and neither ended up lasting very long in the program.
Lying is a ticket out, that’s a great point, David.
And yeah, no carries in the Insight Bowl with Canzeri and Bullock, true freshmen, as his only competition. Keep in mind, Johnson was wearing a red jersey for injury at the beginning of the week.
It wasn’t a comfortable fit and I think everyone involved came to that conclusion at different times.
Also, this makes me think about another point … not a single Coach K commit has ended up making a significant contribution at Iowa. Hopefully Rudock, Mabin, and Venckus-Cucciara end up being exceptions to that rule ….
Given Kirk’s comments wishing Johnson the best and saying he was “disappointed that things didn’t work out better,” I can’t help but think that the decision in this was made by someone above Ferentz on the organizational chart, and outside the athletic department. Absent other events (here, but mostly in PA), I’m not sure that this really would have resulted in a dismissal. I think going forward, at least in the short-run, the athletes are going to have much less leeway in what transgressions don’t result in rather severe consequences. I’m not sure that it is “fair” – it seems like an overreaction to me – but that will just be the nature of things, at least in the foreseeable future. I hope Kirk, the position coaches, or the life coach (Egiozie?) takes this as an opportunity to point out to the players that the focus is on them and that they have to be even more diligent in their decision-making than before.
Couldn’t agree with you more. Barta/Iowa is all about protecting it’s brand at this point. Having this snow ball effect of the “perpetual running back apocalypse” isn’t helping to boost their stock price or ensure investor confidence. I think Iowa wants to maintain that higher morale ground (like the Big Ten in general) stance and take swift action against athletes not aligning with that mantra. Otherwise, we turn into having a rep comparable to MSU.
They’re just trying to maximize their return on investment (ROI) and sometimes you have to dump lower performing stocks (players, ranging from severe to minor-ish charges) from your line up to do what’s best to protect your overall portfolio (Iowa Football). Especially in light of some really disastrous PR in recent memory, DJK, Pierre Pierce, Satterfield, numerous RBs, etc.
Why does nothing get said about Lester Erb? He is their main coach, what is his part is this? He recruits a lot of these guys…
I think that has been brought up before, but the stance is typically, “the coaches can’t babysit the players and they need to make better decisions.” But I agree, I think it’s just human nature to try and find out some logical explanation as to why this is so concentrated. Maybe Barkley Hill said it best with the fact it was simply players making bad choices and they’re all seperate incidences and you really can’t link them all together. Other positions have had attrition for various reasons too, but obviously not at this rate. But I’ll admit it too, it does raise a question about Erb naturally, wether reasonable or not.
It’s a rite of passage that everyone goes through.
A young adult leaves home and, for the first time, has nobody looking over his/her shoulder all the time. While some don’t, most make some bad decisions of varying degrees (I know I did).
It doesn’t necessarily make them bad people. But it is (hopefully) a wake-up call that it’s time to take responsibility for themselves and get their priorities in order.
It’s how they respond to the adversity that will define them and their futures.