Tedford had a chance to talk with Jim McGill of ESPN’s Bear Insider about what happened with Chris Martin’s sudden and shocking departure. (HT California Golden Blogs)
“This wasn’t just homesickness. There was a long list of distractions. I’m not going to get into specifics, but you can imagine for us to not put up more resistance to him transferring, how long that list was. It was evident when he got here that he didn’t want to be here. He wanted to do other things. He wanted to run around with his ex-buddies and do all that. There wasn’t a lot of dedication to school, football and everything like all the other players had.”
“…I wanted him to go and find a place where he could be happy and the rest of our guys would want to be here and be focused and productive.”
For those of used to Tedford’s robotic and diplomatic answers over the years, this is a pretty clear-cut criticism of Martin. It’ll be interesting to see whether he can develop himself well enough to contribute in the deep Florida Gator stable.
In additional news, Cecil Whiteside will greyshirt, meaning the two outside linebackers from the prized 2010 Cal defensive class will not be seeing any action…yet.