Luke Getsy is a mathematics major, but he must have been sick the day they taught problem… Luke Getsy is a mathematics major, but he must have been sick the day they taught problem solving, because he didn’t think this decision through.
Getsy announced that he’d be leaving Pitt to go to Akron. He also said that head coach Walt Harris called him selfish for packing up and leaving.
Believe it or not, Harris was right in saying that.
According to my good friend Webster, selfish means, “concerned chiefly or only with oneself.”
Well Getsy, you left teammates and coaches at Pitt in a bad situation — with one less quarterback. You made a decision that let your team down and were concerned only about yourself. That’s what I call selfish.
Yes, I understand the other side of the story. Getsy will get the chance to start at Akron, but he said himself that he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to get the starting job at Pitt. If he knew this before, he should have just left Pitt then. It would have allowed Pitt to get another quarterback under scholarship who could play this year.
Now there is a waste of a scholarship because of Getsy’s late, Ricky Williams-like decision. He left his team, and that is the most important point I can make.
And for what? He now, according to NCAA rules, has to sit out another year before he can have any playing time at Akron.
He’s already in his third year of school. He’ll then have two years of eligibility left when he starts at Akron.
What’s the point of even transferring to another Division I school? At this rate, he’ll be eligible for social security before he’s cleared to play NCAA football.
He should have just stayed at Pitt. He could have backed up Tyler Palko for the next three years. And who knows? Palko could go down with an injury in the upcoming season, and boom, Getsy has his chance.
If not, he earns a free education — a free education he is giving up in order to transfer to Akron.
Getsy needs to face the facts. He’s a backup. He lost the derby, as it was described throughout training camp by Harris. He’s lost and moved on to Akron.
And that’s where Getsy will start. Or is it?
He may find himself in a quarterback derby again. Akron isn’t a team lacking quarterbacks. They have five right now, not including the addition of Getsy. One of them, red-shirt freshman Jabari Arthur, is sitting right behind senior standout quarterback Charlie Frye. Arthur has been scouted to have a strong arm and great mobility, the latter of which Getsy lacks. He was also a four-year starter in high school and led his team to a 42-4 record.
Arthur also has one more thing that Getsy does not — experience with Akron’s offense. It looks as if he could be in the same position he was in at Pitt a couple of days ago — listed as a backup quarterback, which he had no problem with a couple of weeks ago.
At Media Day, on Aug 12, I asked Luke Getsy whether he’d consider transferring to another school if he did not win the starting quarterback job. He responded quickly, saying that he wouldn’t leave because Pittsburgh is his home. He also said that he’d accept any decision that Harris made.
I guess Akron, Ohio is close enough to still be considered home.
The worst thing is that Getsy is complaining that Harris is holding a “grudge” against him because he won’t release him from his scholarship at Pitt. This means that Getsy will have to pay his own tuition at Akron.
It may seem unfair, but is Harris supposed to help out a player who simply quit on him? Getsy didn’t help Harris by quitting right before the season, and Harris doesn’t need to help Getsy.
As the Dave Matthews Band song goes, “You pay for what you get.”
If I were Getsy, I would have remained at Pitt. I would have kept my backup position and all the free money I had tossed towards my education.
Then again, I could just be acting selfish.
Jimmy Johnson is the assistant sports editor of The Pitt News and he will be selfishly transferring to Akron and leaving Sports Editor Ryan Walker without a backup.
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