Chris Smith Back on the Market

Chris Smith had his scholarship offer officially pulled by West Virginia earlier this week and will now be starting over and trying to find a new home for his college days. We caught up with the Boothwyn, Pa., native recently to find out exactly what happened here and found that Smith is actually taking the news as well as one could expect.

Chris Smith transferred back to Chichester High School this season to play quarterback, however the season has not been very successful for them to say the least. Recently in a game against Academy Park High School Smith’s team had the ball first and goal inside the five yard line when one of his offensive linemen got into a tussle with an opposing player, prompting a personal foul call. The response given to the referee by that lineman drew another personal foul, backing Chichester up a total of 30 yards and in a moment of frustration, Smith threw his helmet to the ground, something the 5-foot-10, 165-pound athlete was suspended one game for.

“When I got home from the game I immediately called the staff at West Virginia to let them know what I did because I felt I was obligated as a future representative of the team to tell them about it,” Smith explained. “A few days later I got a call late at night from one of the coaches who told me that trouble seems to follow me everywhere I go and that they do not want any more players with negative backgrounds coming into their program like Pacman Jones and Chris Henry, so they were taking away my scholarship.”

Smith has always been very courteous when speaking with Scout.com and has a good reputation around the Philadelphia area in football circles, however it is apparent that the West Virginia staff does not see things that way. Smith will now need to start looking elsewhere, something he has not yet started to do.

“I’m just moving forward from this the only way I know how to, but honestly I’m afraid a school may do something like this to me again now,” Smith said. “When I gave my commitment to West Virginia I completely stopped taking calls or having any type of communication with any other school because I gave them my word. Now I will just have to start over from scratch and find another home for the future. Some schools I like right now are Villanova, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia and Virginia Tech.”

Smith started the season at quarterback, but has recently switched positions to running back and wide receiver to give him squad a better chance on the field. He carries a 3.2 GPA and scored a 17 on his ACT, but will take it again along with the SAT test very soon.