Rutgers CB Ian Thomas to pursue baseball, quits football team
By Josh Davis
Rutgers has lost one of their secondary players this week, as Ian Thomas mysteriously quit the football team to “pursue baseball” at another school.
Thomas is a redshirt freshman for the Scarlet Knights and was just coming off of his best game of the season, recording his first career interception against the Fresno State Bulldogs. He had started three games in 2013.
Kyle Flood announced the move by Thomas Tuesday and also pointed out that the coaches were blindsided by the decision.
"I didn’t see a sign that this would happen. It’s a strange occurrence to me, but it happens. It happens here and it happens other places.“I saw an article about a kid at UCF [Blake Keller] who was playing for him and decided it wasn’t the right place for him for whatever reason and players make those decisions. Division I football certainly is very demanding and if you’re not 100 percent and you’re heart’s not in it, I could see why somebody would want to move on"
Rutgers will look to even more youth in the secondary to fill the void left by Thomas, with a couple of freshman looking for the bulk of the minutes. Nadir Barnwell will probably be the first guy up to get a shot, he’s started three games this season. Anthony Cioffi and redshirt junior Gareef Glashen could also figure into the mix.
Thomas’ new school is unknown at this time.
One has to wonder what in the world happened to bring on this sudden decision. He didn’t talk to coaches and was seemingly a major part of the gameplan. I guess sometimes explanations for college age kids are hard to evaluate.