Kansas University football coach Terry Allen held out hope until the very end that Dijon Dillon, a defensive lineman from Free State High, would return to KU for his red-shirt freshman season.
It didn’t happen.
Dillon did not report with the rest of the veterans on Wednesday, and on Thursday Allen confirmed that Dillon was history.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed for Dijon,” Allen said at the annual KU football media day at Memorial Stadium. “I met with him and his mother on the Fourth of July, but we left the door open. But when he didn’t participate in the offseason and didn’t show up (Wednesday), that pretty much closed the door.”
Efforts to reach Dillon, a 6-foot-5, 300-pounder who was an all-state pick as a senior at FSHS, were unsuccessful. Allen said Dillon indicated he’d lost the desire to play.
“He just didn’t want to play football,” Allen said. “He didn’t have the love of the game. He didn’t want to do the things he needed to do to make himself into a football player.”
The defensive line ranks were decimated by graduation six of the top seven linemen ran out of eligibility and KU lost a player to academics (Lance Carson) and another to the offensive line (Justin Sands). Still, Allen said Dillon’s contributions were at least another year away.
“Dijon had an awful lot of potential,” Allen said. “Would he have played this year? No. He needed to make himself into a football player. We’re disappointed.”
Discipline: Allen announced in a release just before the start of media day that he would not renew the scholarship of a player involved in an alleged sexual assault incident in February despite the fact the player already had been deemed academically ineligible.
Allen said the player could have appealed for reinstatement; the scholarship revocation makes that impossible.
Two players it is Journal-World policy generally not to name individuals linked to sex crimes unless they are convicted were suspended over the summer. The one still in good academic standing is on probation.
“The first individual lost his scholarship,” Allen said. “The second one could have a similar situation transpire.”
A Lawrence Police investigation into the incident is on-going.
Add discipline: The pall cast by the alleged sexual assault and a handful of other scrapes with the law over the past few years prompted Allen to talk up his non-problem charges.
“You deal with 125 young men from 18-23 who make some poor decisions,” Allen said. “The numbers and statistics eventually catch up to you.”
Allen lauded the results of a new athletics department education program geared to prevent violence against women and a summer seminar attended by football players that was conducted by the National Consortium for Academics regarding violence prevention.
“Do you want to sit back and let your team be known as a bunch of thugs? Or do you want to be known as a class act,” Allen said. “Who’s running the asylum? Who’s running the zoo. You have to have the right people running the zoo.”
Ferguson out: KU junior tight end Jay Ferguson has been ruled out of competition this season as the result of an inner-ear problem that stemmed from a concussion suffered last season. A two-year letterman from Liberty, Mo., Ferguson played in all 12 games last season as a reserve.
Newcomers impress: After spending at least part of the last five days with his 31-member newcomer class, Allen continues to be impressed.
“I feel even more comfortable about the fit of the new people than I did in Kansas City,” Allen said, referring to the Big 12 media days held two weeks ago.
The newcomer class plus second-semester transfers features 10 junior college transfers.
The juco focus was on defensive linemen, without whom, Allen said, KU “would be in a world of hurt.”
Allen is counting on the likes of Ervin Holloman, John Culp, Demond Benford, Marquis Hayes, Ryan Atkinson and De’Nard Whitfield to contribute to KU’s new four-man defensive front immediately and early indications are that they will.
“You get a pretty good handle on ’em after you see them a couple of days,” Allen said. “You’d like to believe what you see on video is the real deal. Sometimes it’s not. They have some explosiveness.
“There are some kids you question why you recruited in the first place. There isn’t one of those in this bunch.”
Stubbs ailing: True freshman running back Tony Stubbs, a 5-foot-11, 192-pounder from Lake Worth, Fla., underwent a procedure to alleviate swelling in his calves and will be kept out “for a while.”
Eligibility update: Allen said he remained confident that all members of his newcomer class would be cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse. He said he was waiting for the final stamp of approval on three players.
“We’ve seen the transcripts,” Allen said. “When I say I feel very confident of guys passing the Clearinghouse, it’s because I’ve seen the transcripts, I’ve seen the courses, I’ve seen the grades.”
Upcoming: KU will hold its first full-squad practice today without pads. Pads go on Tuesday.
