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We covered the first three guys who opted out of the 2020 college football season—Virginia Tech CB Caleb Farley, Minnesota WR Rashod Bateman and Penn State LB Micah Parsons—last week in the MMQB and GamePlan. Since then, with the whole college football season hanging in the balance anyway, we’ve gotten two more.
The big one was Miami DE Gregory Rousseau, an edge-rushing prospect who’s not what Chase Young was going into last fall but isn’t that far off. Which is to say he’s got a good shot to go in the top five picks, and that’s even knowing he won’t play a snap of real football during the 2020 calendar year.
Obviously, that was part of Rousseau’s decision. But there’s another piece to this, too, one that is, I believe, indicative of how deeply personal these calls are.
Rousseau says that back in March and April, as the pandemic took shape, the idea of leaving his Hurricane teammates wasn’t really on his radar. That changed as things worsened around him—and his view of COVID-19 intensified. His mother is an ICU nurse at the Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, and as spring turned to summer, South Florida emerged as one of the country’s coronavirus hotspots.
“So just seeing her go through it, and seeing what’s going on, made me really think about it,” Rousseau said. “I went over it with my family and weighed out the pros and cons, I realized I had an opportunity to help them, obviously I can get money from endorsements and stuff like that. And I wanted to give a little of myself if I had the opportunity to help out my family.”
His father, a mechanic, worked through the spike in the area too, and amidst all of that, one of Rousseau’s best friends contracted the virus. "He got pretty sick. He’s OK now, but his lungs, he said they’re not the same.”
All of that dealt Rousseau with a new reality, tipping the risk/reward scale toward the idea of leaving school to focus on the draft. And at that point, the hardest part was figuring out how to tell his teammates.
He and the other starters on the Miami defensive line lived close to one another, and they convened at a friend’s house for Rousseau to deliver the news. "They were sad, but they said, We understand, we feel you bro.” After that, the rising redshirt sophomore told a few other teammates before going to head coach Manny Diaz, who was very involved in Rousseau’s recruitment.
“We talked about it multiple times and I finally told him [Thursday], and he said, ‘Yeah, man, just go be great. Work hard, don’t settle, don’t change who you are,’” Rousseau said. “It was the best talk you could ask for, I’m so grateful he responded like that, and didn’t try to guilt trip me or anything.”
Rousseau added that, in taking part in all of Miami’s on-campus workouts until last week, he didn’t feel at risk. “This was more to help my family. Coach Diaz and the staff are doing a really good job of protecting the players at UM. I’m not sure how it’ll be when football starts, but they are doing the best job they can to keep everybody safe.”
And that was reflected in how the news got out. It actually came on Diaz’s pre-fall camp conference call with the media. The coach simply asked Rousseau beforehand, Hey, should I just announce it? Rousseau responded, Yeah, go ahead. And so it was done.
Now, it’s not like Rousseau won’t face questions. The obvious ones are there. He took a medical redshirt his freshman year after appearing in just three games, which means he has an injury history, and he’ll have only played in 16 games (the equivalent of one NFL season) between his senior year at Champagnat Catholic (enrollment from Grades 6-12: 213) and his rookie year in the NFL.
That said, he’s pretty confident in who he is as a player, after a 15.5-sack year as a redshirt freshman and, at 6' 7" and 254 pounds, there’s a lot of untapped potential there to mine.
“I’d say I’m definitely a blue-collar guy who’s really hard-working,” Rousseau said. “And I’d also say I’m very versatile, I can play in the 3-4 and drop back into coverage, I play a 9-tech, a 5-tech, 3-tech, 0-tech, I can play end on the D-line or I can stand up. I feel like I’m really versatile, I can do whatever a team needs me to do.”
Of course, it’ll be a while before he can prove it. For the time being, he’ll be working out at Bommarito’s, a well-known combine prep center, in Aventura, Fla. He’ll do the usual strength-and-conditioning work, and NFL combine prep, and mix in as much game-speed football work as he can (he wants to work on his get-off and hand placement, specifically) to try and stay sharp.
He knows, too, that nothing will replace the game action he’ll miss. But clearly, personally for him, there were bigger things at work here.
The big one was Miami DE Gregory Rousseau, an edge-rushing prospect who’s not what Chase Young was going into last fall but isn’t that far off. Which is to say he’s got a good shot to go in the top five picks, and that’s even knowing he won’t play a snap of real football during the 2020 calendar year.
Obviously, that was part of Rousseau’s decision. But there’s another piece to this, too, one that is, I believe, indicative of how deeply personal these calls are.
Rousseau says that back in March and April, as the pandemic took shape, the idea of leaving his Hurricane teammates wasn’t really on his radar. That changed as things worsened around him—and his view of COVID-19 intensified. His mother is an ICU nurse at the Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, and as spring turned to summer, South Florida emerged as one of the country’s coronavirus hotspots.
“So just seeing her go through it, and seeing what’s going on, made me really think about it,” Rousseau said. “I went over it with my family and weighed out the pros and cons, I realized I had an opportunity to help them, obviously I can get money from endorsements and stuff like that. And I wanted to give a little of myself if I had the opportunity to help out my family.”
His father, a mechanic, worked through the spike in the area too, and amidst all of that, one of Rousseau’s best friends contracted the virus. "He got pretty sick. He’s OK now, but his lungs, he said they’re not the same.”
All of that dealt Rousseau with a new reality, tipping the risk/reward scale toward the idea of leaving school to focus on the draft. And at that point, the hardest part was figuring out how to tell his teammates.
He and the other starters on the Miami defensive line lived close to one another, and they convened at a friend’s house for Rousseau to deliver the news. "They were sad, but they said, We understand, we feel you bro.” After that, the rising redshirt sophomore told a few other teammates before going to head coach Manny Diaz, who was very involved in Rousseau’s recruitment.
“We talked about it multiple times and I finally told him [Thursday], and he said, ‘Yeah, man, just go be great. Work hard, don’t settle, don’t change who you are,’” Rousseau said. “It was the best talk you could ask for, I’m so grateful he responded like that, and didn’t try to guilt trip me or anything.”
Rousseau added that, in taking part in all of Miami’s on-campus workouts until last week, he didn’t feel at risk. “This was more to help my family. Coach Diaz and the staff are doing a really good job of protecting the players at UM. I’m not sure how it’ll be when football starts, but they are doing the best job they can to keep everybody safe.”
And that was reflected in how the news got out. It actually came on Diaz’s pre-fall camp conference call with the media. The coach simply asked Rousseau beforehand, Hey, should I just announce it? Rousseau responded, Yeah, go ahead. And so it was done.
Now, it’s not like Rousseau won’t face questions. The obvious ones are there. He took a medical redshirt his freshman year after appearing in just three games, which means he has an injury history, and he’ll have only played in 16 games (the equivalent of one NFL season) between his senior year at Champagnat Catholic (enrollment from Grades 6-12: 213) and his rookie year in the NFL.
That said, he’s pretty confident in who he is as a player, after a 15.5-sack year as a redshirt freshman and, at 6' 7" and 254 pounds, there’s a lot of untapped potential there to mine.
“I’d say I’m definitely a blue-collar guy who’s really hard-working,” Rousseau said. “And I’d also say I’m very versatile, I can play in the 3-4 and drop back into coverage, I play a 9-tech, a 5-tech, 3-tech, 0-tech, I can play end on the D-line or I can stand up. I feel like I’m really versatile, I can do whatever a team needs me to do.”
Of course, it’ll be a while before he can prove it. For the time being, he’ll be working out at Bommarito’s, a well-known combine prep center, in Aventura, Fla. He’ll do the usual strength-and-conditioning work, and NFL combine prep, and mix in as much game-speed football work as he can (he wants to work on his get-off and hand placement, specifically) to try and stay sharp.
He knows, too, that nothing will replace the game action he’ll miss. But clearly, personally for him, there were bigger things at work here.
