The Will Yeatman saga at Notre Dame came to a close this week with the junior tight end officially requesting a transfer from Notre Dame. As everyone likely remembers, Yeatman was suspended for most of the year after being arrested in the ridiculous raid on the women’s lacrosse house back in September.
According to the South Bend Tribune, there aren’t a whole lot of options for Yeatman to transfer to if he wants to play big time football and lacrosse.
There are only 55 other Division I lacrosse schools Yeatman could potentially transfer to, and only 11 of those play football at the highest level (Football Bowl Subdivision). One of those is Navy, which appears on ND’s football schedule every year. Army pops up on the football schedule in 2010. Syracuse, perhaps a potential future football date, was also on the banned list.
Four schools — Air Force, Penn State, Ohio State and, yes, North Carolina — appear on ND’s spring lacrosse schedule.
That would leave Yeatman four football/lacrosse schools where he was free and clear to transfer to without any entanglements — Duke, Virginia, Maryland and Rutgers.
When asked Tuesday if he planned to block the one-time transfer exemption for Yeatman, ND lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan responded, “This isn’t over, and until it is, I have no comment.”
It’s a shame it has come to this. Yeatman had a very promising career for both the football and lacrosse teams and while he put himself in this situation, there are plenty of other parties involved that could have handled this situation a whole lot better than they did. Hopefully Yeatman lands somewhere that he can excell on both fields with a fresh start.
Yeatman’s departure hurts Notre Dame’s depth at tight end for next season. Even with Mike Ragone coming back from injury, Yeatman was considered the best blocking tight end on the roster and would have seen plenty of action along with Ragone and freshman Kyle Rudolph.
