D.J. Adams came into this season as one of the best young players on the Maryland football team. He had rushed for an impressive 10 touchdowns as a redshirt freshman the year before and he was expected to form a very dangerous two-headed combo with Davin Meggett. Instead, Adams got very sporadic carries and now has been released from his scholarship with the university.
During the year nobody really knew why he was in coach Randy Edsall's doghouse. Adams' father, Allen Lawrence has a theory why, and it's an especially ridiculous one. The reason, after the jump.
Lawrence told Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun that the first thing that may have made Adams stand out in a bad way to the coaching staff was that he had died his hair blonde for training camp. Yup.
Lawrence said that the problems seemed to begin when Adams showed up sporting blonde hair for preseason camp.
"That was just a camp thing. It was a fun gesture to the team, but I think it was taken a lot of different ways," Lawrence said.
I'm sorry. How many different ways can that be taken, and which ones are a negative thing? I understand Edsall is a disciplinarian, but if true, this seems to take it a little over the line, especially considering football is a sport where you can't see the players hair when he is on the field.
I was very frustrated to not know what caused Adams to lose carries during the season. Now that I have read one theory of what might have set that train in motion, I kind of wish I was still in the dark.