DeShon Elliott no longer plays for Texas, but popped in the news last week when he went on a (since-deleted) Twitter rant against his former coaches.
“I’d really appreciate it if anyone on the current staff at the University of Texas Football team besides Craig Naivar , Jason Washington or Kyle Coats would keep my name out of there mouth and continue to bad talk me or any other junior that decided to leave early,” he wrote. “We lead your team the best we could before making a decision to better our families. Which I believe you would do the same. If you really ‘loved’ your players the way you portray then you wouldn’t continually talk bad about them behind closed doors. Bad mouthing us to our brothers who we played for and cried and sweat for way before you stepped on campus. Kept my mouth quite about this, it’s the complete opposite of my personality but it has to come to an end. It’s been a continuous thing for far too long.”
Brian Davis of the Austin American-Statesman reported through “a source familiar with Elliott’s thinking” that the former ‘Horn safety was peeved after his hosting of a Fourth of July pool party, attended by several current Texas players, made its way through the football facility and the staff allegedly warned the current team not to associate with Elliott.
Texas head coach Tom Herman declined to discuss Elliott’s thoughts last week, but addressed them on Monday.
“Disappointed. Surprised. I’m not real sure where that came from,” Herman said. “We never had an issue with him; he was a tremendous player for us. We felt like he developed a ton in one year with our staff, and we wish him nothing but the best in his quest to fulfill his dream in the NFL.”
Recruited by Charlie Strong, Elliott was reportedly among the cabal of players who remained loyal to the previous staff. (Texas had six juniors enter the 2018 NFL draft.)
Despite that, Elliott had by far his best season under Herman and company. After appearing in 19 games with one start over his freshman and sophomore seasons, Elliott blossomed in 2017, starting all 12 games (he opted out of UT’s Texas Bowl win over Missouri) and recording six interceptions to go with 63 tackles, 1.5 sacks and three forced fumbles. He was a unanimous First Team All-Big 12 honoree, a unanimous First Team All-American and a Thorpe Award finalist.
Elliott was a sixth-round selection of the Baltimore Ravens in April.