When the deadline for eligible underclassmen to make themselves available for the 2011 NFL draft came and went, and didn’t include Russell Wilson‘s name amongst those in the talent pool, it was thought by some there was at least a slim chance the quarterback could return to North Carolina State for another season.
Tuesday afternoon, Wilson’s head coach seemed to kick that notion to the curb once and for all. Kinda. Sorta.
While he didn’t slam the door shut and lock it with a dead bolt, then push furniture in front of it just to be safe, head coach Tom O’Brien said at his signing day press conference this afternoon that the Wolfpack is planning on Mike Glennon starting under center in 2011 and Wilson continuing his professional baseball career.
Probably.
“Our plans are he’s not coming back,” O’Brien said. “He’ll be a baseball player. We have to move forward with Glennon. We’ve planned for this day and Michael’s ready to do it.
“It [would] be a tough situation for him to come back and do it [without spring practice]. We would have to see if that ever happens but I don’t foresee that happening down the road. Russell has never failed at anything he has ever attempted. He’s going to try make the Colorado Rockies. That’s where I see him.”
Wilson was a fourth-round draft pick of the Colorado Rockies in June of 2010, but has a season of football eligibility remaining. As noted by the Raleigh News & Observer, Wilson, as a college graduate, could transfer to another school and play one more year of college football if he so desired.
However, that doesn’t appear to be the case as Wilson seems ready to focus solely on the stick-and-ball sport.
Maybe.