Um, wow.
Just two months after the player Notre Dame recruited to be its quarterback of the future left the football program, the Irish’s quarterback of the recent past, present and presumably foreseeable future has apparently responded in kind.
According to multiple media outlets, and subsequently confirmed by the school, starting QB Everett Golson is no longer enrolled at Notre Dame. No reason was given for the non-enrollment, and there was no immediate word on what if any future Golson has with the Irish football program.
“Federal and school privacy laws preclude us from issuing any further comment at this time,” a statement from the school read.
The move, especially if permanent, is beyond shocking.
Golson, in his first season as the Irish’s No. 1 quarterback, started 11 of the 12 games in which he played in leading Notre Dame to its first unbeaten regular season in more than two decades. The lone loss with Golson starting under center came against Alabama in the BCS title game.
Both entering and exiting spring, Golson remained the presumptive front-runner for the starting job in 2013. So much was Golson’s stranglehold on the job, in fact, that it played a significant role in former five-star recruit Gunner Kiel‘s decision to leave the Irish for Cincinnati prior to the start of spring practice.
Where this leaves the Irish at the most important position on the field remains to be seen.
And, obviously, we’ll have more on this out-of-nowhere story as it develops.
UPDATED 11:57 p.m. ET: In a bit of a clarification as to what reportedly led to Golson no longer being enrolled at Notre Dame, Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune wrote on Twitter that “an academic violation [is] behind the QB no longer being enrolled at #NotreDame, per sources.”
While the rumors of what exact academic violation Golson may have committed has been bandied about the vast expanse of the Internet, we’ll wait until something a little more concrete surfaces before diving into that end of the speculative pool.