SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah quarterback Cam Rising is giving up football — at least for the foreseeable future — because of his struggle to recover from a hand injury sustained early in the 2024 season.
“I have been advised by two orthopedic surgeons that I will never be able to return to playing football,” Rising wrote in a social media post Wednesday in which he announced that he “will be forced to medically retire from the game I love.”
Rising, who turns 26 next week, added that he will seek a third medical opinion and proceed with recommended surgery and rehab, but the 6-foot-2, 220-pound dual threat from Ventura, California, stopped short of indicating that he foresees a path to playing again.
Rising played parts of four seasons at Utah from 2020 to 2024, having sat out the 2019 season after transferring from the University of Texas, where he redshirted as a freshman in 2018.
He passed for 2,493 yards and 20 touchdowns while rushing for 499 yards and six scores in 2021, then followed that up with 3,034 and 26 touchdowns passing plus 465 yards and six scores rushing in a 2022 season that landed the Utes in the Rose Bowl. However, a knee injury from the bowl game sidelined Rising for all of the 2023 season.
His comeback in 2024 was a short one. With the Utes facing Baylor in the second game of the season, the quarterback was pushed across the sideline as he released a throw and ran into a hydration table, appearing to jam his finger on a cooler.
Rising tried to come back a little more than a month later, but he struggled in a loss to Arizona State in October as the Sun Devils intercepted him three times. He did not play again after that.
Austin Peay player dies
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — Austin Peay State University senior defensive back William Hardrick, a transfer who spent the past two years at Miami (Ohio) after two seasons at Mississippi State, has died, the university announced Wednesday.
Austin Peay’s announcement said the 22-year-old died Tuesday, but the school did not provide details regarding a cause or location and said it would have no further comment.
Hardrick “was an exceptional young man, and our team is heartbroken by his loss,” Austin Peay coach Jeff Faris said in a release from the Governors, who compete in the Football Championship Subdivision’s United Athletic Conference. “He made everyone around him better and has made a real impact both on and off the field. We lift up the Hardrick family in prayer as we grieve this tragic loss with them.”
Hardrick was from Adamsville, Alabama, where he was a standout receiver and defensive back in high school.
Hardrick played in one game at Football Bowl Subdivision member Mississippi State of the Southeastern Conference as a freshman in 2021. He transferred in 2023 to Miami, an FBS program in the Mid-American Conference, and played in 18 games for the RedHawks across the past two seasons, totaling 32 tackles, breaking up five passes and forcing a fumble.
Keeping up in the SEC
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Mississippi State plans to build a $60 million indoor practice facility with an expected opening in the summer of 2028, the Bulldogs announced Wednesday.
Howard Industries of Laurel provided the lead naming gift, and the building will be named in honor of former Bulldogs multisport athlete Billy Howard Sr., pending approval of the Board of Trustees for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning.
Howard, who graduated in 1946, excelled in football, basketball, and track and field, earning the nickname “Iron Man” for playing nearly every minute of every football game.
Architecture firms CDFL and HOK and facility planners are in the design phase, and groundbreaking is anticipated in 2027. The building will include a 110,000-square-foot indoor training facility as well as areas dedicated to injury prevention and recovery. There also will be renovations inside the adjacent Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex.
“Words cannot truly express how incredibly grateful we are to Howard Industries and the entire Howard family for making this vision a reality,” Mississippi State football coach Jeff Lebby said in a news release. “This new indoor facility will allow us to train more effectively as we compete against the best in the country week in and week out.”
Gator facing legal trouble
TAMPA, Fla. — Police have accused University of Florida cornerback Dijon Johnson of two felonies, including possession of a firearm, and two misdemeanors after his arrest over the weekend while driving a car in Tampa.
Police said they pulled over the car Friday for surpassing a stop signal. Officers detected a “strong odor of burned marijuana” and said Johnson was argumentative during the traffic stop, refusing to exit the gray Dodge Challenger, according to the criminal report filed in Hillsborough County.
Johnson was removed from the car and placed into custody. Police said they searched the vehicle and found marijuana and eight grams of synthetic marijuana inside a backpack. A black Glock 19 loaded with 17 rounds in a magazine also was found in the car, according to the report.
“We are in dialogue with the State Attorney’s Office regarding Dijon’s traffic stop last week,” Tampa-based attorney Tim Taylor said in a statement released Wednesday. “At this time, no formal charges have been filed. Any potential charging decision will, of course, need to be consistent with Florida law. We are eager for all the pertinent facts to come to light.”
The gun charge is a second-degree felony, possession of the synthetic marijuana is a third-degree felony, and the marijuana possession and resisting arrest without violence charges are misdemeanors.
Johnson has entered written pleas of not guilty to all charges, according to court documents.
Gators oach Billy Napier said in a released statement that the program is “aware of the situation.”
“We will continue to gather facts, cooperate with and monitor the legal and administrative processes,” Napier said.
Johnson, 21, was booked early Saturday and released the following night after posting an $8,500 surety bond, according to jail records.
A 6-1, 196-pound junior from Tampa, Johnson had 27 tackles and two pass breakups last season.
NCAA penalizes Zips
AKRON, Ohio — The University of Akron’s football team will be ineligible for postseason play in the 2025 season because of its multiyear academic progress rate score.
The NCAA this week updated its national APR database with the latest scores of member institutions. Akron had a score of 914, below the 930 minimum for postseason eligibility.
Akron’s athletic department has not commented on its APR penalty and did not immediately return messages left by The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Akron, a MAC member, has not been to a bowl game since 2017, which was also the last time the Zips won more than four games in a season. Akron’s 4-8 record in 2024 under third-year coach Joe Moorhead was its best since posting the same mark in 2018. In between, the Zips won no more than two games in a season and went winless against a 12-game schedule in 2019.
The last FBS team to be barred from postseason play because of APR scores was Idaho in 2014.
The NCAA temporarily suspended some APR penalties, including postseason bans, because of the COVID-19 pandemic that began disrupting college athletics in the spring of 2020. However, the NCAA’s Committee on Academics voted to restore such penalties beginning with four-year scores released during the 2024-25 academic year.
