It’s official: Maty Mauk will attempt to rehabilitate his flailing career -- and battered public image -- at a lower level of football.
Following up on reports that surfaced earlier in the week, an Eastern Kentucky official has confirmed to Dave Matter of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Mauk has signed an athletic grant-in-aid agreement with the FCS school. Mauk will be eligible to play immediately in 2016, his final season of eligibility.
Matter writes that Mauk will “likely compete with senior quarterback Bennie Coney, a returning starter who set several team records last season.”
Given how the first three years of his career went, it’s borderline amazing Mauk’s even getting another shot at a starting job at any level.
In late January, Mauk was dismissed by Mizzou, three days after he was suspended when a video showing a person who appeared to be Mauk snorting what appeared to be a line of cocaine. That marked Mauk’s third suspension in four months.
Mauk was suspended in late September of las year for violating unspecified team rules. After missing four games, he was reinstated. Less than a week after his reinstatement, he was suspended for the remainder of the 2015 season. That suspension allegedly stemmed from an off-campus incident involving the player and an unidentified male outside of a downtown Columbia drinking establishment.
In late December, new Mizzou head coach Barry Odom reinstated Mauk before being forced to dismiss the quarterback a month later.
Mauk was the starting quarterback on the Tigers’ 2014 SEC East title squad after starting a handful of games for the 2013 East title team. He attempted just 110 passes in that truncated 2015 season that again saw him begin the year as the starting quarterback.