It appears the long national nightmare involving Tennessee receiver Da’Rick Rogers is over... for now.
Rogers caused quite a stir late last week when he didn’t show up to Vols practice, which was only magnified by tweets sent out the night before suggesting, perhaps, that a transfer to Georgia State was a possibility. Add in a report from Scout.com that Rogers was indeed transferring tot he 1-AA program -- the website backed off that assertion later -- and the situation was speculative, despite Derek Dooley‘s best efforts to smooth everything over:
No longer. Rogers has been back at practice and took some time on Monday to clarify a few things -- most importantly, his solid status with the Vols football team.
“Oh man, no controversy,” Rogers told reporters. “Just had some little things to handle off the field, got those handled and now we’re looking forward to becoming a championship-contending team. ... If I was a distraction, I really wasn’t trying to be a distraction. It was a situation that we got handled, and everything is good now.”
Cool, but what about the ominous tweets regarding Georgia State?
“No transfer for me, no consideration. Maybe I need to do a little better job with my tweets, letting everybody know what’s really actually going on so next time it won’t be misinterpreted.
“Sometimes you just come to a point in your life where you have to be strong about things. I had a little weak moment, and that’s gone behind me and behind the team now. We’re ready to go.”
To Dooley’s credit, he’s been pushing that everything is, more or less, peachy with Rogers. Whether that was actually the case behind the scenes we’ll probably never know, but it looks like the Vols can move forward with one of the more talented receivers in the SEC.
(Quotes courtesy of the Knoxville News-Sentinel)