Roughly two months before the start of summer camp, Texas’ depth in the trenches has taken an unexpected hit.
In a release, the Longhorns announced that offensive tackle Paden Kelley has decided to give up football for personal reasons. While the junior’s taking himself away from the football program, he will remain in school and continue to work toward a degree.
“After talking with my family and the UT staff, I have made the decision to take a step back from football in order to focus on family and other priorities in my life outside of athletics,” Kelley said in a statement. “I am abundantly thankful to Coach [Mack] Brown, the rest of the coaches and the team for the tremendous opportunity and experiences I’ve had during my time as a Longhorn, and I look forward to starting a new chapter in my life.”
In the past two seasons, Kelley played in a total of 20 games, including 13 games in 2011. He made one start during his three years with the Longhorns.
“We support Paden in the decision he’s made and understand his reasons,” head coach Mack Brown said. “We appreciate the efforts he’s given in his three years here and wish the best for him in the future.”
(Photo credit: Texas athletics)
One might think this would be to focus on academics, but he’s been an honor roll and academic all-conference guy. Maybe he really wants to be serious about finishing up strongly for grad school purposes, as a humanities BA (English, in his case) can be a tough sell in the job market (this comes from someone who had to sacrifice a lot to become employable after having chosen to get a worthless German degree).
I think Kelley was likely to be UT’s top or 2nd reserve at tackle this fall, but another possible reason for leaving could be the emergence of juco transfer Donald Hawkins. He’s apparently making a very convincing case to start at LT, so Kelley may have been waiting to see whether he’d get a shot at the starting job, then seen that it’s not going to happen. Considering he’s a junior, and the projected starters at tackle are a junior (Hawkins) and sophomore (Marshall), it appears he’d have always been a reserve.One might think this would be to focus on academics, but he’s been an honor roll and academic all-conference guy. Maybe he really wants to be serious about finishing up strongly for grad school purposes, as a humanities BA (English, in his case) can be a tough sell in the job market (this comes from someone who had to sacrifice a lot to become employable after having chosen to get a worthless German degree).
I think Kelley was likely to be UT’s top or 2nd reserve at tackle this fall, but another possible reason for leaving could be the emergence of juco transfer Donald Hawkins. He’s apparently making a very convincing case to start at LT, so Kelley may have been waiting to see whether he’d get a shot at the starting job, then seen that it’s not going to happen. Considering he’s a junior, and the projected starters at tackle are a junior (Hawkins) and true sophomore (Cochran), it appears he’d have always been a reserve.
@burntorangehorn make your way over to insidetexas.com or orangebloods.com. This had nothing to do with depth or grades. Also, Cochran will start at LT and Hawkins at RT. Don’t look or Greenlea to be back either.
I didn’t say it was about grades. If you’ll read what I said, I specifically said one might think it’d be about grades, but that he’s been an honor roll guy. But his major is English, so I did speculate maybe he’s prepping for real life, since football isn’t in his future, and English degrees are usually useless without grad school.
As for those two pay sites, why not just provide links to the stories you mean, or even just say what the deal is?