{"id":7452,"date":"2015-01-02T10:47:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T15:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7452"},"modified":"2015-01-02T10:53:01","modified_gmt":"2015-01-02T15:53:01","slug":"a-guy-named-noah-spence-enrolled-at-jmu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7452","title":{"rendered":"A Guy Named Noah Spence Enrolled at JMU"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Our Twitter buddy @jmudukeblawg<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n