Teddy Bridgewater may have been on to something when he said Louisville would “take in and welcome” former Auburn and Arkansas State running back Michael Dyer.
Though Cardinals coach Charlie Strong said during AAC Media Day that Dyer was not part of the program, a report from George Schroeder of USA Today indicates that could change soon.
Citing Dyer’s mentor, Arkansas Baptist president Fitz Hill, Schroeder reports that the running back will enroll at the school and report for camp next week. According to a previous report from the Louisville Courier-Journal, “[a]n official with U of L’s registrar office confirmed that the university added Dyer to its system... which is often an indication a prospective student plans to apply for enrollment.”
Louisville has not commented on the report -- Dyer issued a statement this morning confirming it, however -- and likely won’t until Dyer is officially enrolled.
If/when that happens, Dyer apparently won’t be doing it on his own dime. Schroeder’s report says that Dyer was offered a scholarship to play for the Cardinals, which he accepted. Dyer had previously expressed interest in transferring to Arkansas, and went so far as to say he’d be willing to walk on and pay his own way.
That, by Dyer’s own admission, was a result of the off-the-field baggage he’s been carrying around for the past couple of years.
“I understand the reasons I am in this situation. I placed myself here. I take responsibility,” Dyer said in a recent interview with ESPN. “But I’m not the same person I was. I’ve changed. I’ve grown up.”
That’s something Hill corroborated in an interview with the USA Today.
“Based on what he has done at Arkansas Baptist College, I don’t have one negative,” Hill said. “I can’t talk about (what happened at) Auburn or Arkansas State, but I can talk about Arkansas Baptist College. It’s been all positive.”
Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but there’s little doubt the Cardinals would be getting a great talent in the backfield that could provide yet another boost for a team with possible BCS championship hopes.
In January of 2011 as a freshman, Dyer was named the offensive MVP of Auburn’s BCS title game win. After rushing for 1,000 yards each of his first two seasons with the Tigers, Dyer was granted a release from his scholarship in January of 2012, one month after he was suspended for the Tigers’ appearance in the Chick-fil-A Bowl for failing multiple drug tests. He transferred to Arkansas State that same month in a reunion with former AU offensive coordinator and then-ASU head coach Gus Malzahn; six months later, he was dismissed by Malzahn for “undisclosed violations of team rules.”
In August of 2012, Dyer landed at Arkansas Baptist, where he sat out the football season to focus on academics. Because Dyer completed his associate’s degree, he would be cleared to play immediately and have two years of eligibility remaining should he choose to utilize them both.