Our Honor Defend

Things have been looking up and up for the Buckeyes entering a season with very high expectations.  Good news appeared in bunches.  Unfortunately, this appears to be a stretch of bad news.  Jamel Turner, one of the blue chippers in our recruiting class, was shot again over the weekend and may never play football again.  Now, Duron Carter will transfer out of Ohio State and enroll in Coffeyville Community College in Kansas¹ to get his academics in order.  He will also compete on the football team.

It follows from recent rumors that Duron Carter was still having trouble with his grades this long after he was ruled academically ineligible for the Rose Bowl.  His tweets seemed to confirm that the rumors are true.  A follow up message on his desirability to make things right seems to suggest he may try to enroll at Ohio State as early as January 2011, though this remains to be seen.  Cris Carter will apparently say more about his son’s future shortly.

The door is certainly not closed on Duron Carter’s future, but it is hard to see this as anything other than a categorical disappointment for the meantime.  Carter came to Ohio State with a high pedigree, as much a function of excellent coaching from his powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas program in Florida as well as from his all-pro father.  The most disappointing part of this is that Duron Carter is no dope.  He got high marks in high school, giving no indication that a college curriculum would be too daunting for him.  Further, this is an issue that Duron expressed confidence that he could rectify immediately.  Ohio State’s quarter system and Carter’s absence from football activities ever since the December 2009 ruling suggests that it was not resolved after winter quarter, nor after spring quarter.  It basically reads as a case where Duron fell short not because of his cognitive faculties, but because he did not adequately handle the responsibilities that come with being a student-athlete.  This makes it all the more disappointing at first glance, though I’m guessing we’ll know more in the future.  I hope he is able to straighten things out.

1. Coincidentally, this was the JUCO that former Buckeye tailback Ron Springs started at before enrolling at Ohio State after his freshman year. [↩]