It looks as if talented wide receiver Da’Rick Rogers will be playing football in the state of Tennessee this season after all.
Just not for the University of Tennessee.
Several local reports say that Rogers has transferred to Tennessee Tech, where he will be immediately eligible to play for the Golden Eagles. Rogers met with Tennessee Tech coaches on Sunday, just 48 hours after being suspended indefinitely by UT coach Derek Dooley for an undisclosed violation of team rules.
Tennessee Tech is a Football Championship Subdivision school located about 100 miles west of Knoxville in Cookeville, Tenn. Rogers will have two years of eligibility remaining, but it remains to be seen whether he will already be in the starting lineup when the Golden Eagles open their season against Hampton on Thursday night.
The move also reunites him with his old high school teammate, Tre Lamb, whose father was Rogers’ head coach at Calhoun (Ga.) High School. The younger Lamb is entering his third season as Tennessee Tech’s starting quarterback after leading the Eagles to the Ohio Valley Conference championship as a junior.
News of Rogers’ suspension at Tennessee coincided with the release of a Vols’ depth chart that did not include him. After the announcement, Dooley told reporters that he didn’t foresee Rogers playing for his team at all this season.
The 6-foot-3, 206-pound Rogers was a first-team All-SEC pick last year after ranking first in the conference with 67 catches and second in the league with his 1,040 receiving yards. He also caught nine touchdown passes.
He totaled six games with at least 100 yards receiving, while 54 of his 67 (81 percent) catches during the season went for first downs or touchdowns.
Rogers’ tenure in Knoxville had been stormy from the outset, starting with his decision spurn the nearby University of Georgia to attend UT. He had already been arrested for his role in a brawl involving multiple Tennessee players by the time he had stepped on the field for the first time as a freshman.
Several other incidents soon followed.
