At this time three years ago, Everett Golson was on top of the world. He was the starting quarterback for undefeated Notre Dame, and the Fighting Irish were preparing for Alabama, who would be their opponent in the BCS National Championship Game.
Golson's future was extremely bright. After all, he was the starting signal-caller for one of the country's most storied franchises as a freshman, a true dual-threat who could beat defenses with both his arms and his legs with two or three more years to hone his craft before entering the NFL Draft.
Back in present time, the future is anything but bright. Golson, who is now a member of the Florida State Seminoles, did not travel to Atlanta this week and will not play in the team's Peach Bowl game against Houston. Tom D'Angelo of the Palm Beach Post was the first to report it, stating that “a personal issue” was the reason for the absence.
That news is just the most recent piece of a puzzle that has become quite complex.
It began a few months after the championship game loss to Alabama, when Golson was suspended by Notre Dame for “poor academic judgment.” He was forced to miss an entire season, leaving the Irish with Tommy Rees at quarterback.
But at the time, it didn’t seem like the end of the world. Golson spent ten weeks with QB guru George Whitfield Jr. developing his mechanics and skills, and he was primed to return to South Bend as an even better quarterback.
“He’s probably our best recruit right now in this recruiting season,” Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said then via JJ Stankevitz of CSNChicago. “That’s a five-star recruit.”
That highly-touted “recruit” looked like just that to start the 2014 season, leading the Irish to a 6-0 start that got them as high as No. 5 in the rankings. But after suffering a heartbreaking loss to No. 2 Florida State, the season took a turn for the worst.
The Irish lost four of their final six games, meanwhile Golson turned into a human turnover machine and was eventually benched. When freshman Malik Zaire played an outstanding game in a Music City Bowl victory over LSU, Golson was essentially gone.
He settled on Florida State, which was initially a solid fit. They were a winning program with a terrific group of skill players and a need for a quarterback.
Again, he started the season hot only to fizzle toward the end of the season. Golson missed two games with a concussion, then was benched midway through the NC State game and played sparingly against Chattanooga. During that time, junior Sean Maguire wrested away the starting gig and started the final game of the season against Florida.
Despite the up-and-down season, though, head coach Jimbo Fisher still thinks Golson did the right thing by coming to Tallahassee.
“With what he gave us the first half of the year. … He was the second leading passer in the ACC when he got hurt, we were 6-1 with him as a starter,” Fisher said, per D’Angelo. “Tremendous year.”
However, that doesn’t change the fact that Golson had an incredibly inconsistent college career, and his NFL potential seems far-fetched—if not nonexistent—at this point. NFL Draft Scout has him ranked as the 31st best quarterback in this year’s draft class, and he is not in the top 25 on CBSSports.com’s rankings.
It is hard to believe that a player who was in Golson’s position as a freshman could end up like this at the end of his career, but it just shows how hard it is to be an elite college football player.
Inconsistency was ultimately Golson’s Achilles’ heel, and now it looks like it could keep him from a NFL career.