Giving George O’Leary a run for shortest tenure in Irish football history, cornerback Spencer Boyd is transferring away from Notre Dame, before ever spending an autumn with the Irish.
The move isn’t completely unexpected as rumblings started a few weeks ago, but the South Bend Tribune’s Eric Hansen broke the story officially this afternoon. According to Hansen, for Boyd’s transfer to be complete he needs to work his way into good academic standing with the university, so he’s spending summer school with the Irish to get his classwork in order. It appears the split is more than amicable.
“He’s been a good kid,” head coach Brian Kelly told Hansen. “He’s done the right things. He’s worked hard. He fell behind academically and had a lot of personal things going on in his life. Unfortunately, all of the things tipped the scale enough to make it difficult for him to stay in South Bend.”
Boyd has a two-year-old son who lives back in Florida. He had offers from Miami, UCF, and South Florida among others before signing with the Irish, and it appears that he’ll end up with new coach Skip Holtz in South Florida.
It’ll be interesting to see how the transfer rules apply to Boyd. He was likely to redshirt his freshman year of college, but also has the type of hardship case where the NCAA waives the one-year waiting period for eligibility. Either way, he’ll probably have five years to play four seasons.
It’s tough to ruminate on what the Irish lost having only had 15 workouts with Boyd, but the first transfer of the Brian Kelly era seems to have been handled with class across the board. Boyd is the first early-entry transfer the Irish have had since the Irish opened up early enrollment five years ago. It’s a good reminder of just how big of a reality shock it is for a high schooler to enter college before his senior prom.