BLOOMINGTON â€" An Indiana University spokesman confirmed to the Herald-Times in Bloomington on Saturday that Jeffersonville High School graduate and Hoosiers’ quarterback Edward Wright-Baker has decided to leave the IU football program.
The Herald-Times reported Wright-Baker’s exit on its Indiana University athletics blog â€" “The Hoosier Scoop†â€" on Saturday night.
Along with Wright-Baker leaving, fellow IU quarterback and former Columbus East signal-caller Dusty Kiel also is leaving the squad. Kiel is the older brother of the 2011 Indiana Mr. Football, Gunner Kiel, who also played at Columbus East. Last summer, Gunner Kiel gave a verbal commitment to play at IU in 2012. But he rescinded his commitment last October and then later verbally committed to Louisiana State.
During the 2011 preseason, Wright-Baker and Dusty Kiel battled for the starting quarterback position, which was vacated by ex-IU quarterback Ben Chappell. Wright-Baker won that battle and started the first four games.
But in a 24-21 loss at North Texas, Wright-Baker injured his ankle, which allowed Dusty Kiel to come in and throw for 145 yards and two touchdowns.
Kiel then started the next two games, which were losses to Penn State and Illinois. However, in the setback against the Illini, Kiel suffered his own ankle injury.
Wright-Baker returned to his starting role on Oct. 15 at Wisconsin. But the former Red Devil standout was ineffective, completing 6-of-15 passes for 54 yards with two interceptions in a 59-7 loss to the eventual Big Ten champion Badgers.
Once word got out about Gunner Kiel’s decommitment to IU on Oct. 21, first-year Hoosiers’ head coach Kevin Wilson decided to start true freshman Tre Roberson at quarterback against Iowa the following day. Roberson started the final five games of the regular season, as IU ended up with a 1-11 overall record and an 0-8 Big Ten mark.
Wright-Baker threw for 1,029 yards during the 2011 season with four touchdowns and four interceptions. He completed 59.5 percent of his passes.
Wright-Baker is Jeff High’s single-season and career total yards leader. During his standout career with the Red Devils, he compiled 6,562 yards of total offense. In 2007, he set the single-season total offense record with 2,779 yards.
Wright-Baker was the school’s all-time leading passer with 3,684 yards until last season when he was passed by his successor at Jeff, current senior Dalton Conway.
The blog did not indicate whether Wright-Baker will transfer to another school.
Rumors about Wright-Baker and Dusty Kiel leaving the Hoosiers began on Thursday when Cameron Coffman, a junior college quarterback at Arizona Western College, accepted a scholarship offer to play football at IU next season.
No comments:
Post a Comment