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Austin Valdez announces via Twitter this evening that he is going to grad transfer for his 5th season and play the 2017 somewhere other than BGSU.

That sucks.

That could indicate he sees younger linebackers overtaking his playing time.

Unfortunate. He's a high character young man and a good leader for the defense. It will be a loss.

Bummer....

Good luck to him, though...

I never saw the 5th year senior trend hurting BG. When it started I figured every year we'd get guys like E Hardy who never got to contribute for P5 schools looking to come in and have one last big year. Dieter to Bama and now Valdez to wherever he's going is killer. It's certainly hurting us more than helping.

Certainly not saying I'm glad to see him go, by any means, but it didn't seem to me that he had the same aggressiveness last year. I know he got hurt, but even before the injury, he didn't seem to be flying around like he had in previous seasons. Maybe he was dealing with minor injury(ies) that I wasn't aware of?

It's never a good thing to be going into a season losing your returning 3 year starter at middle linebacker, but it'll open up a spot for younger player to step in. Not necessarily good for the team in the short term, but maybe not so bad for the long term. Bottom line, if a guy doesn't want to be here, then he shouldn't be. Will be curious to see where he lands. Hopefully, he has success wherever he goes and it turns out to be a good decision for him.

At 6-0 and 247...Hendrix would be better suited to the MILB than the OLB

Nate lock did well there last year when covering for Austin. He finally got some playing time that showed his capabilities.

I find it hard to believe people make these announcements without first knowing where they are going. I am pretty sure he's moving up.

Globetrotter wrote:I find it hard to believe people make these announcements without first knowing where they are going. I am pretty sure he's moving up.

I seriously doubt that. He is not that good. He is a decent mac player but that is it

My guess is he has a specific topic he wants to study and BGSU does not offer that topic. When I graduated, BG did not have my Masters program, so I went on to Purdue. They do now have my program.

gspointer wrote:

Globetrotter wrote:I find it hard to believe people make these announcements without first knowing where they are going. I am pretty sure he's moving up.

I seriously doubt that. He is not that good. He is a decent mac player but that is it

I agree that he wouldn't break that news without knowing where he's going, but I would be a little surprised if he's going to a P5 school. I have to figure a guy who's used to playing full time isn't going to want to transfer to a school where he's likely to stand on the sidelines. I'm just not sure he would make it as a starting linebacker in those leagues. Maybe he sees an opportunity to step in to a starting role on a group of 5 team that's likely to win their league and he doesn't think BG will compete this year, maybe it's for academic reasons, maybe he has a girlfriend at an other school that he wants to be close to, maybe he's just tired of playing in the cold artic tundra in November and wants to play somewhere warm. Who knows, could be any one of a million reasons. I'm sure we'll find out his reasons, at some point.

JohnFloyd4Life wrote:I never saw the 5th year senior trend hurting BG. When it started I figured every year we'd get guys like E Hardy who never got to contribute for P5 schools looking to come in and have one last big year. Dieter to Bama and now Valdez to wherever he's going is killer. It's certainly hurting us more than helping.

I agree. And I'm starting to agree more and more with what I'm hearing more coaches say they're likely going to do, and that is, if they have a true frosh who is good enough to play in his first year, they're going to play him instead of redshirting him. It'll keep the redshirt available if needed due to an injury, and it'll decrease the chance of saving the final year for another coach of another team. I didn't dislike this ruling once it came out years ago because it was pretty much utilized as it was intended. But it's not being used that way anymore in most cases and it had become more of a loophole.

gspointer wrote:

Globetrotter wrote:I find it hard to believe people make these announcements without first knowing where they are going. I am pretty sure he's moving up.

I seriously doubt that. He is not that good. He is a decent mac player but that is it

First off, I am disappointed that he's leaving because I never enjoy seeing guys leave, but that said, I've never seen much out of him that a lot of others seem to have seen out of him on the field. He wasn't even the best player at his position on a bad team. And when he was injured, it wasn't really even mentioned and we didn't seem to miss a beat at his spot. Further, there are teams in the MAC who have multiple guys at LB better than him. I thought he did a good job transforming his body from a QB to LB mold and made strides at the position. But I wasn't sold on him as an All-MAC pick when he was named it in the past. I suspect he's leaving to play at a P5 school, maybe one of the poorer ones, but who knows. And one last thing, I also noticed a lot of his teammates over the years were always clowning on him constantly on Twitter. Nothing malicious or anything but it left the impression he was a bonehead of sorts. I mean some guys didn't let up on him and if anyone else saw it too then you know who I'm referring to.

BGSU33 wrote:

JohnFloyd4Life wrote:I never saw the 5th year senior trend hurting BG. When it started I figured every year we'd get guys like E Hardy who never got to contribute for P5 schools looking to come in and have one last big year. Dieter to Bama and now Valdez to wherever he's going is killer. It's certainly hurting us more than helping.

I agree. And I'm starting to agree more and more with what I'm hearing more coaches say they're likely going to do, and that is, if they have a true frosh who is good enough to play in his first year, they're going to play him instead of redshirting him. It'll keep the redshirt available if needed due to an injury, and it'll decrease the chance of saving the final year for another coach of another team. I didn't dislike this ruling once it came out years ago because it was pretty much utilized as it was intended. But it's not being used that way anymore in most cases and it had become more of a loophole.

It's exactly what they should be doing. If a kid is good enough to help you win as a freshman, even as only a ST player, then he should not be redshirted. If a guy becomes a building block I see no reason to save the 5th year for another team. And if you're one of the big boys I have no idea why they ever redshirt their good recruits anymore. Too many players are leaving as RS Sophomores for the NFL...why RS a player to end up only having him for 2 seasons.

The caveat, of course, is how many of these players are want, or are asking, to be redshirted during recruitment. I would think that most would prefer to play right away anyhow, but perhaps not.

I wish him well. I hope he finds a good grad school that meets his needs.