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PrintMANHATTAN, Kan. — Less than a week into fall practice under new Kansas State head coach Ron Prince, former starting quarterback Allan Evridge has decided to transfer.
Evridge told Prince of his intentions Tuesday and was granted a release from his scholarship. A formal announcement came Wednesday, making Evridge the third Wildcats quarterback to depart Manhattan since the spring game in April.
“Allan Evridge had a great start to his Kansas State career last season and we would have liked him to stay and be a part of this organization,” Prince said in a statement.
“We were looking forward to his contributions, but we understand that quarterbacks are competitive people by nature and we wish him well in his pursuit of his athletic and academic goals.”
Evridge played in nine games as a redshirt freshman last season, starting six, and threw for a Kansas State freshman record 1,365 yards and six touchdowns. In one game against Texas A&M, he completed 23 of 44 passes for 357 yards and three touchdowns.
He also rushed for 203 yards, including 138 yards in a 27-25 loss to Nebraska.
“I did everything they asked of me, on and off the field,” Evridge told The Wichita Eagle on Wednesday.
“I even contemplated moving to defense just to get on the field. I did everything right by the program but it didn’t look like I was going to be given an opportunity to contribute to the team in the way I would have liked.”
The 6-foot-1, 214-pound lefty becomes the third quarterback to leave the program since the spring game, paring down what had been a five-way battle for the starting job to senior Dylan Meier and heralded freshman Josh Freeman.
In April, redshirt freshman Kevin Lopina announced he was transferring, eventually settling on Washington State.
Then last month, senior Allen Webb, who split time as the starter with Evridge last season, announced he was transferring to Texas College, an NAIA school in Tyler, Texas.
During the Wildcats’ media day Friday, Evridge had told reporters it was “sad to see those guys go, especially Webb. I had a lot of respect for him. It’s sad to see him go. But other than that, it’s kind of do your own thing and see how it plays out.”
He also Friday that he had adapted to Prince’s regimen and thought he had done enough through spring workouts and the summer conditioning program to earn the starting job.
“You’re obviously competing, and there’s little things every now and then,” he said. “It’s been interesting so far, so it’ll be an interesting fall, an interesting two-a-days.”
Perhaps most interesting is that Evridge’s departure comes less than a month before the season starts, and after a successful spring game in which he completed 6-of-12 passes for 72 yards and a touchdown.
“It’s a surprise this time of the year,” associate athletic director Jim Epps said Wednesday. “When Lopina transferred, it’s more typical for a player to be disenchanted for whatever reason. But at this time of the year, when you’re embarking on two-a-days and the academic semester is going to start in eight or 10 days, it’s unusual.”
Epps also said that while it’s not surprising to have players transfer under a new coach, it is unusual to have so many leave from one position.
Evridge’s departure leaves the Wildcats with Freeman and Meier as the only quarterbacks under scholarship.
“The fact that you have three kids all who play the same position is unusual,” Epps said. “From that standpoint it would be considered out of the ordinary.
“But when you get back to the premise of a new coach comes on board, a new system, a new offense,” he added, “kids could say, ’That’s not why I was originally recruited to K-State.’”
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