A Guy Named Noah Spence Enrolled at JMU
Noah Spence played defensive line for Ohio State who had 8 sacks and 14.5 tackles for loss last year as a sophomore. His play earned him first-team All-Big 10 honors. Then he tested positive for ecstasy and was suspended by Ohio State for the Orange Bowl and the first two games of this season. While serving that suspension he failed another drug test and was declared permanently ineligible by the Big 10 Conference. After being declared ineligible, he hinted that he intended to enter the NFL draft and go pro. Since he ranked as high as 22nd second overall on Mel Kiper’s list of draft prospects, that would appear to be an option. His draft stock took a bit of hit due to his suspension and he might feel that another season on the field could help him out. Which had lead to all sorts of rumors. One of which, is that Spence will be using his remaining eligibility to suit up for him former Ohio State Defensive Coordinator in an attempt to boost his draft position. His former Ohio State Defensive Coordinator is Everett Withers. And thus, the rumor mill (or at least a small portion of it centered in the Shenandoah Valley) has Noah Spence playing for JMU next season.
Investigating this sort of thing to determine it’s validity isn’t really our thing. At all. Rumors like this pop up every year for basketball and hoops. As a rule, we try to ignore them. Most of them turn out to be completely false. This one might. Or it might not. We don’t really know. And if we’re being honest, we don’t really care that much right now either. We’ve been ignoring it much the same way we ignore most rumors like this. But people have been bugging us about it so we figured we lay out everything we “know” and let others run with it if they so wish.
Our Twitter buddy @jmudukeblawg is big on this sort of stuff and is a bit of internet sleuth. He contacted us to provided us with the “evidence” he found that shows Spence is coming to JMU. It consists of the screenshot above showing a Noah Spence listed in the JMU online directory. According to @jmudukeblawg he checked the directory last week and there was no Noah Spence. This week he checked again and there’s now a Noah Spence. There you go.
Again, this is nothing more than a rumor at this point. A rumor that we can find no mention of anywhere other than JMU fan message boards and a few JMU fans’ twitter accounts. That doesn’t mean it’s not true or that Spence won’t be showcasing his talents in Bridgeforth next season. He very well might do just that. It’s just not something we’re going to spend a lot of time worrying or writing about at this time.
We’re not trying to be dismissive of those of you who love this sort of stuff. And we’re actually sort of flattered when people reach out to us asking for us to confirm it or dig into this or similar stories. That’s just not what we do though. That’s reporting. We’re more in the emotional rants, snide remarks, and armchair quarterbacking game. If the official word comes that Spence is joining the JMU program, we’ll weigh in with our thoughts. Until that time though, we’ll just sit back and wait.
Happy New Year guys!
It’s fun to contemplate this sort of talent at BFS … please keep your ‘ears’ open for us!
First – I love college and pro sports. Stayed up to 1 last night watching the NCAA playoff games.
But.. Why should we be happy that (potentially) a guy that has been suspended twice from his school/team for drugs has not applied to and been accepted to JMU, in the hopes of playing football for 1 season there so that he can help out his position in the NFL draft ?
And some hard working kid from Richmond/NOVA or wherever (in or out of state) that only got a 3.9 and 85% on the SATS is not on the wait list or not accepted ?
If this is what goes with shooting to be D-1 power, no thanks.
Brian said it^
Well, his middle name is Gregory, his father’s name is Gregory, so that tends to favor it being the same guy, rather than favoring against it. Do we really want this guy on our team?
Hell no we don’t want that kind of cancer. Look at how long its taken the Wizards to get rid of all their cancers the past 10-15 years? Just now are they getting high-character AND highly talented players and its showing dividends.
@brianS I don’t think you are being fair – Spence was a 2 time OSU scholar athlete and Academic All Big Ten honoree. Plenty of students have been busted for doing dumb things in high school or college. You aren’t giving the boot to a 3.9 and 85% SAT- you might be giving the boot to someone who has a lower GPA than Spence and doesn’t produce sacks every week at Bridgeforth Stadium.
He deserves a chance! withers can get this done.
That is EXACTLY what it means to be an FBS school, get used to it and I for one am fine with it. We will take talent wherever we can find it. You have no idea if he is a “cancer”. I won’t get into the list of things I was doing in college that I shouldn’t have been, but it is a long list. You can’t make any judgement on his impact as a teammate just because he got busted twice for drugs, get over it.
Well, I’m glad he has some academic ability. However, there does not seem to be any indication that he wants to go to JMU for that purpose. He wants to play ball, and get drafted in the spring. 1 and done in other words. And getting busted once for drugs, I’ll give you a pass, but twice ? When the stakes are that high ? No thanks. Find a 4 year guy that you can develop. But of course they won’t, this is laziness and just a step on the way to making JMU no different from any other D-1 football factory.
Do you guys know how many college kids — including jmu students — mess around with coke and molly? It would blow your mind. I’m not condoning the behavior, but I don’t think I’m going to sit here and trash a kid for doing the same thing everyone else around him is doing… Just because he’s and athlete. I don’t want to hold student-athletes to a lower standard, but it’s not fair to hold them to a higher one, either.
If I learned anything about EW in year 1 at JMU, it’s that he’s not going to tolerate a whole lot of bs. If this kid can’t get his act together, I think EW will boot him out of the program. Who knows — maybe some tough love ends up benefitting both the young man and the program. At this point, I’m certainly willing to trust Withers’ judgement.
Get used to it if you want to be FBS. Keep in mind that EW probably won’t be here long term. A couple more good seasons and some playoff runs and we’ll lose him just like UR lost London.
Why doesn’t someone just email this Noah Spence and ask if he is the same Noah Spence from OSU?
Well I would NOT want to see this guy come to JMU. Yeah that’s all we need is a drug user/ loser bringing his bag of goodies to Da burg and getting some of the other dudes just trying some and BAM there goes the team , the reputation and everything we are trying to build.
Help Noah with his drug problem, but don’t bring him to JMU just because he can tackle when he is relatively drug free. There are thugs all over the country that could play football , but can’t stay drug free and feel the rules don’t apply to them.
The other players will think they can do it as it must make you a better player!
My 2 cents
If you read this guy’s Twitter account, he knows he messed up. He was involved in an almost year appeal with the Big10 with the support of Urban Meyer. It’s ecstasy, not heroin. No one here knows all the circumstances around the issue, and most importantly, who are all you to judge? I can’t believe that everyone commenting was squeaky clean when attending JMU. EW is a smart man, and wouldn’t bring in someone that would upset the bond of this team.
Looks like Noah Spence is heading elsewhere….http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/former-ohio-state-de-noah-spence-transferring-to-eastern-kentucky-061544233.html