I just want to clarify some misconceptions Pitt fans may have regarding our star running back James Conner’s eligibility if he sits out the rest of the year due to his knee injury and subsequent surgery. We have been reading comment questions about whether or not James Conner can use this season as an automatic “injury redshirt“. Here are a few things to understand as this term is misleading.
There really is no such thing as a ‘injury redshirt” per se… there are just regular redshirt seasons with a possible medical waiver at the end of his four years – once that is granted that additional year is called a “Medical Waiver year”. What can and does happen sometimes is that a player can petition the NCAA for a 5th year if in one of his four years (not counting his redshirt year) he gets hurt before the team played 30% of its regular season.
Here is what Conner is looking at right now. If he sits out this season 2015 (this year) it will be treated as a regular year of eligibility used because he played in a regular season game. Since he also played games in 2013 & ’14 and this season if he chooses to come back in 2016 he will be a Senior. This cannot be a redshirt year at all.
Passing wasn’t going to come easy to the Zips offense against the Sooners.
However, what little bit of promise displayed in that area came from the performance of Jerome Lane Jr. The former Firestone High School standout, caught three passes for 57 yards, including a long reception of 42 yards. However, coach Terry Bowden pumped the brakes on praising Lane just yet.
“If Jerome Lane would stay focused and learn his assignments and do the little things, he could be good at any one position on either side of the ball,” Bowden said.
It might also help if the coaching staff settled on where they want to use him. Last year, Lane was playing linebacker for the Zips. It doesn’t seem likely he will go back to the defense given the issues for Akron in the passing game. Akron quarterbacks completed only 6 passes for 88 yards the entire game (Chapman was 0-8).
