Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman announced Monday the dismissal of redshirt sophomore tight end Tyrus Washington for a violation of team rules, and Washington gave his side of the story on the 4th and 5 Podcast with former Razorback tight end D.J. Williams.
“Really just overwhelmed," Washington said. "Still going through day by day trying to get my schedule. It’s weird not being a football player and having practice. You’d wake up and know your day is scheduled. Now I’m not really knowing what I want to do with my day.
"Shocked, to be honest. Shocked that I’ve given so much to this program, given so much to this university and so much of my time, blood, sweat and tears that I’m just let go. Like, not even thought about or talked about. It’s shocking, to be honest.”
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How does Washington's sudden exit from the Razorbacks' program tie into the greater conversation of coach-and-player dynamics in this unknown era of college football, you may ask?
To understand that, it's best to start at the beginning of Washington's side of the story: the fourth quarter of an Arkansas blowout at Mississippi State.
Prior to the game, the redshirt sophomore tight end said he learned from a cousin that his grandmother is in bad health and "on hospice basically."
"During the game, (the coaching staff) asked me to go in in the fourth quarter and I told my coach (Morgan Turner) no," Washington said. "I said I’m not going in and I spoke to the player development guy and I told him I’m not okay and I need counseling. He told me to try to work it out and just fight through it on the field and go back into the game and then we’ll talk about it on Monday in the meetings and stuff.
"So I said ‘Okay.’ I went and told the coaches I’m okay to go in, but I was trying to tell them I’m not okay mentally but if you need me I’m here. To be honest, we were playing Mississippi State. Our team was kicking butt, our tight ends were doing their thing. Shoutout to Luke (Hasz) and shoutout to Andreas (Paaske) because they were playing a hell of a ballgame. To be honest, I didn’t think that I needed to go in to just try to fight through something and look bad or mess up the team in general when I’m already going through something mentally.
"To be honest, that messed me up and I should’ve taken accountability for that because that was the reason why I was thrown off the team — for not going into the game. I know I could’ve handled it differently, but at the time I let that shut me down. And it shut me down because mentally I’ve been going through a lot of stuff and physically I’ve been going through a lot of stuff. It broke me down a little bit. I’m only human.”
The aftermath of how Washington handled things during the Mississippi State game resulted in a meeting with head coach Sam Pittman that didn't go as expected. Washington said he texted Pittman to set up a meeting — presumably Sunday — before he was called into a meeting with the head coach by tight ends coach Morgan Turner.
Washington said an offensive coaches meeting had just ended as he walked in, and some of the coaches didn't want to say anything to him.
“I was ready to talk about me and my mental because I found out things that I shouldn’t have found out before a game and it really messed me up mentally," Washington said. "I was ready to talk about counseling because I was talking about it with the player development guy (Danny Wheeler) during the game and I was talking about it with him and telling him I wasn’t okay mentally. That wasn’t really the case. It was like they already had their mind made up about me and what was going on."
Washington then laid out a general recap of how he remembers the conversation with Pittman.
"It was just ‘What’s your problem?’ And I just told (Pittman) ‘I’m not okay right now,'" Washington said. "He was being very assertive like he’s the one in power, which everybody knows you’re the one in power. It was just like ‘You’re off the team.’ And I’m like ‘Okay.’ And I tried to explain it to him like you’re kicking me off the team, but can you listen to me? ‘I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not on the team anymore.’
"And I was like ‘Five minutes ago, I was just on the team, so can you listen to me now and let me explain what’s going on?’ Really didn’t want to hear, to be honest. He said for the past three years I’ve done nothing but complain, which is new to me to be honest because, if anything, I’ve had my head down trying to work and just show what I can do. It was all just quick and surreal.
"It wasn’t even a question of ‘Are you okay?’ I’m not the type to do anything out of my character. I’m not that type of person, so I would expect someone to be like ‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’ A lot of people asked me that on the team, even players asked me that. And I was expecting that — just help in general — but that wasn’t the case going into that.”
The 6-foot-4, 249-pound tight end out of Leesburg, Georgia, followed all of that up by saying he takes responsibility for how things went down. The news he received before the game hit him hard, he said.
"That messed me up," Washington said. "So I already have things going on mentally and physically right now. For the last two weeks, they have not been playing me. I asked the constantly why they haven’t and I got no answer. I had things going on physically and mentally that was already messing me up and I was trying to tell them I’m not okay and I even asked for help, like counseling and stuff."
A former John Mackey Award winner as the nation's top tight end and an Arkansas legend, D.J. Williams did a good job of running the interview and told Washington that he should know he can't tell a coach he's not going in the game. Williams asked Washington if there was anything he could've done differently to prevent the outcome of him being kicked off the team.
“I would probably go to my tight ends coach earlier and ask him why they were doing what they were doing and how they were moving," Washington said. "He called me in going into Mississippi State after LSU and was just like ‘I’m sorry, my communication was bad. I should’ve told you what was going on during the week. You just seem frustrated.’ Me, I was frustrated because of the way things were getting handled. But that doesn’t have anything to do with my play.
"That was the first week I was back healthy, so it really didn’t sit well with me to be honest. I wish I could go back and ask him during LSU week instead of asking during Mississippi State week. It didn’t sit right with me because you’re saying I’m frustrated and that’s why I’m not playing, but has nothing to do with how I practice, how I work and how I play. That’s what I would probably do.
"And I wouldn’t do what I did against Mississippi State again. I’ve got to work through that myself. I can’t let things shut me down the way it did and I can’t let things affect me as a player on the field, because nobody really cares until things like this happens. You’ve got to work through it regardless.”
Washington said he understands why Pittman did what he did, but he said he wished it was handled differently. The third-year tight end also offered an apology to Razorback fans and his teammates.
"Just sorry that it went down the way it did to be honest," Washington said. "If I could go back and take it back, I would, but I can’t. The only thing that I can basically do now is move on and go with how things are moving now. But, it’s always love for Razorback nation to be honest.”
Moving forward, Washington said he is focusing on graduating and staying in shape. Asked if he would consider returning to Arkansas if the opportunity presented itself — Pittman did say a return is not in the cards — Washington didn't seem open to the idea.
“When I was walking out, nobody said a word to me," Washington said. "Nobody tried to even like, pull me to the side and give me words of encouragement, because I was very emotional when it happened. But, at that time, I had only heard from the player development people and a weight training coach who was really close to me and helped me get my body back to the way it is.
"So, to that question, probably not. Just because nobody has even tried to just reach out, say anything to me to be honest. But the players have, don’t get me wrong. Players, my trainer that got me back from my shoulder injury, she reached out, but other than that, that’s just a big thing to me. Like, when a man’s down, what do you do? And you just don’t say anything to him, that just hurts a little bit. So, probably not. Probably not."
