Sid Hartman: Gophers' Rhoda thankful he returned for fifth season

per Sid:

Thoughts of leaving

That was Rhoda’s lone start last season, and he said with the upheaval around the Gophers in the offseason, there was a real chance he was going to leave the team.

“I guess I was going to just pursue other options based on the previous staff, what they wanted to do with quarterback and they weren’t going to renew my scholarship after I graduated in December,” he said. “So I wanted to explore for my fifth year just some other options. I looked into some things and got my film out to some people, kind of right during the dead period is when Coach [P.J.] Fleck got hired.

“I was in a two-week waiting process and then Coach got hired and called me about two days later. It was a pretty easy sales job for him to get me to want to come back here, giving me that opportunity. This is where I wanted to be and wanted to play for five years. I couldn’t be happier with the way it worked out.”

http://www.startribune.com/gophers-conor-rhoda-thankful-he-returned-for-fifth-season/446286703/

Go Gophers!!

I'm really glad it worked out for him and hope he's incredibly successful this year.

The more I've thought about it, I don't blame Claeys for making the decision to pull the scholarship based on where the team was at the time and what Rhoda's roll was likely to be. He was trying to improve the team by getting the scholarship to someone who was projected to contribute. I can't get too mad at that myself.

However, in retrospect, once the EOAA report came out and recommended suspending Green and Williams for a year I am surprised he didn't circle back and re-up the scholarship for insurance. The team could have been down to McLaurin and Croft and any true freshman that signed at QB. Seems like even if Rhoda wasn't a great fit he would have been a serviceable option for QB3 and probably worth a scholarship. Especially when McLaurin was such a question mark (like any JC transfer would be, nothing personal).

Considering our current situation - I'm damn thankful he came back too.


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I'm glad he's back to

Getting his Masters paid for, starting QB in the B1G, and getting to play under Fleck. He made the right choice.