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The NCAA has a chance to do what it was meant to do.
The latest drama in college football, locally at least, centers around the ambiguous status of UNC transfer wide receiver Tez Walker, who is caught up in the bureaucracy we’ve come to hate about college athletics.
Walker, technically, is a two-time transfer after starring for two seasons at Kent State. He is from Charlotte, UNC has always been his dream school and he picked the Tar Heels to get closer to his family and ailing grandmother.
The buzz about Walker filling the need at wide receiver has now been soured pending Carolina’s appeal to the NCAA, which changed its transfer rule to disallow the immediate eligibility of players who previously went to two schools. Except Walker only enrolled at one.
Mack Brown spent the majority of his post-practice comments Tuesday lamenting the tale of Tez, who has been listed at No. 1 on the depth chart but according to his head coach is now very upset and showing bad body language on the field and in meetings. UNC is pushing the NCAA for a quick decision.
Walker first signed with East Tennessee State but injured his knee in preseason practice and was granted a red-shirt year. He transferred to N.C. Central in Durham, where the 2020 football season was cancelled due to COVID and did not resume the following spring. So, he transferred to Kent State and in two seasons distinguished himself as among the best wideouts in the country, making first-team all-Mid-American Conference as a sophomore.
“His head coach, offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach all left,” Brown said. “Tez felt like he would have the one-time transfer to get here and was coming back to be closer to home.”
His grandmother, who helped raise Walker, has never seen him play in college, and with the Tar Heels having eight games in the state would have that chance. Brown said Kent State fully supports him being eligible, which is supposed to be a major factor with appeals to the NCAA.
“It’s not like he is a two-time transfer,” Brown said. “He has only played football at one school. He’s followed all the rules, and the rules were changed. We feel very good that the NCAA will look at this as not a normal case. It’s a mental health issue to consider for new director Charlie Baker (former governor of Massachusetts) who I am hearing really good things about.”
Brown said Walker is a 3.0 student who has done everything the right way. “There’s no way he can be denied to play this season.”
Featured image via Kent State Athletics
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