Not every coach around college football has bought into Curt Cignetti’s production over potential mantra when it comes to the transfer portal.
In a report this week by Candace Buckner of the Washington Post, IU senior running back Roman Hemby said he was pushed out of College Park by his head coach.
“It was (Maryland) Coach Locksley that … said that, you know, the door was kind of open for me to leave and they wanted to kind of seek new avenues and restart and build a new culture and get some younger players,” Hemby told Washington Post.
Hemby has been one of Indiana’s most important players on their way to a 13-0 season and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. He has 1,078 combined rushing and receiving yards to go with six scores and 5.2 yards per carry. 101 of those yards came at Maryland. He’s now amassed 4,300 rushing and receiving yards for his college career, and he’ll play a key role when IU takes on Alabama next week at The Rose Bowl.
When he entered the transfer portal this time last year, the Maryland native says he received messages from people questioning why he’d leave his home state program.
Hemby has alluded to the offseason move as one that was emotional for him, but he had never talked about how things ended at Maryland. There were clues. After the week one win over Old Dominion Hemby said he was shedding tears.
“Not everybody gets second chances and I feel like I got one,” Hemby said following that week one contest.
Locksley did say ahead of Indiana’s 55-10 win at Maryland this year he had to make a business decision, and let Hemby go rather than pay what the market demands for a highly productive veteran running back.
In Hemby’s place, Maryland featured freshman running back Dejuan Williams, who rushed for 501 yards and 3.9 yards per carry.
The 6-foot and 208-pound Hemby capped off IU’s perfect regular season with an 82-yard touchdown run at Purdue, highlighting the high-end speed that his him firmly on the NFL radar.
But for his part, Cignetti has seen no signs of a player just in it for the money — in college or at the next level.
“Roman Hemby is a warrior,” Cignetti said earlier this season. “That guy gives 100 percent every day, every play, physical runner, fast, smart, great hands, great out of the back field. And you know, he’s a guy that wants the ball, that you can give the ball to and that he’s been durable.”
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