The backfield cavalry expected to head to Lincoln has one obstacle to navigate before he officially joins Scott Frost’s squad.
Nebraska confirmed in mid-January that Dedrick Mills had signed with the Big Ten school and would play for the Cornhuskers in 2019. The junior college All-American committed to the Cornhuskers in the summer of last year but didn’t put pen to paper during the early signing period in December.
While Mills has already graduated from Garden City Community College, he did not participate in spring practice with the rest of his future Cornhusker teammates. Monday, Mills’ junior college head coach explained to the Lincoln Journal Star that the standout running back needs to bump-up his grade point average in order to enroll at his new university.
"[H]e’s there [at GCCC] trying to get his GPA up,” Jeff Sims told the Journal Star. “The issue isn’t needing credits. The issue is GPA. You have to have a 2.5 to transfer to Division I. It’s not like back in the day when you needed to just graduate.
“He’s working to raise that GPA. The problem is, the more classes you take, the better grades you have to get.”
The classroom issue continues a trend of off-field hiccups experienced by Mills the past couple of years.
In August of 2017, Georgia Tech announced that Mills had been dismissed from the program for an unspecified violation of athletic department rules. It was subsequently learned that the dismissal stemmed from failed drug tests — three to be specific.
During the Early Signing Period late last year, Mills was in court addressing a failure to appear citation he received after being charged in July with driving on a suspended driver’s license. He received probation over that incident.
In 2016, Mills’ 771 yards and 12 rushing touchdowns led all Tech ball carriers., with 169 of those yards coming in the bowl win over Kentucky. Mills put up all of those numbers as a true freshman despite being suspended on two different occasions for a total of three games.