Everett Golson Didn't Become a Notre Dame Legend but Can Still Become a Great QB

Notre Dame football loves its legends and lore. Whether the stories are real, glorified or Hollywood fictions, the program and its fans define themselves by the likes of the "Four Horsemen," "the Gipper" and "Rudy."

Well, Everett Golson, who a few years ago looked like he was destined for his own folktale after leading the Irish to the national title game as a kid quarterback, obviously isn't going to fit in with Notre Dame's legends after all.

His story is too real.     

Golson announced Thursday that he's leaving Notre Dame rather than playing his final year there, per Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports. Soon, he'll figure out where he will play this fall, if he hasn't decided already.

It's going to be hard for people to figure out where he fits into Irish lore. He's probably remembered as a guy who didn't live up to his potential, who cheated on a test, who left with his tail between his legs rather than fight for the starting job again.

But the narrative should be different. His best days as a quarterback are ahead of him. And there's nothing wrong with the story of a kid who flubbed up and then did what he could to make amends and make the most of himself. Think of this: He was kicked out of Notre Dame for academic cheating, and after he was re-admitted, he went on to earn his degree. At least, he's scheduled to earn it at the end of this semester.

It hasn't worked out for him yet, but it still could. He just didn't fit at Notre Dame anymore. He might not have been the starter, and he had just one year of eligibility left.

If I were Golson, I'd be begging Charlie Strong to take me in at Texas. Strong is a tough disciplinarian who believes in second chances for people who have earned them. He also oversaw Teddy Bridgewater's college quarterbacking days at Louisville, and Golson would fit the scheme.

Golson is going to be written off as a failure at Notre Dame, but that isn't right.

He didn't get caught with drugs. He didn't hit a girlfriend or attack a woman. He cheated on a test, then paid a stiff but fair penalty. This isn't to excuse cheating, but it's to say that he did a dumb thing as a kid. That's what kids do: dumb things. They just don't usually happen to be the most visible player on one of the most visible teams in America.

When Notre Dame kicked him out, he apologized and did what he had to do to get back. He could have gone somewhere else right then. He camped out with a cousin in Chicago, began working out and then went to work with quarterback guru George Whitfield to improve his game.

It is only the legends that demand perfection. Golson has been a real kid in a world of fictionalized perfection.

Good for Notre Dame for taking cheating seriously, even with its quarterback. And good for Notre Dame for recognizing what he'd done to make it right and allowing him to come back after a season away. Golson looked like a Heisman candidate for the first half of this past season, and then everything fell apart on the field. He couldn't take care of the ball.

Year	Cmp-Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD-INT	Rating
2012	187-318	58.8	2,405	12-6	131.0
2014	256-427	60.0	3,445	29-14	143.6

But he took care of his grades. That's a good academic ending for a kid who messed up. And now his game is messed up, and he can make the football end right, too.

Smooth stories aren't necessarily more admirable than ones with screwups. And at Notre Dame, no one's story is really as smooth as it's told. For example, no Irish team ever saw its players place jerseys one-by-one on their coach's desk in protest to make sure Rudy would play—I've always thought at least half of Rudy was fiction.

"Try 90 percent," Robin Weber, one of Rudy's former teammates, told me a few days before Notre Dame's loss to Alabama in the championship game with Golson under center. Years earlier, Weber, a backup tight end, made a big catch in another Notre Dame-Alabama title game that also goes down in the lore.

"Good guy with true blue-gold blood," Weber said. "Several of us used to call him the leprechaun in pads because of his dwarf-like stature and enthusiasm in congratulating you on a great hit when you would nail him, which was every play.

"Surprised he never got hurt, but he was real good at hiding by the defensive tackle's (rear) in his position as a fourth-string cannon-fodder linebacker."

There is no way of knowing exactly what is in Golson's head right now. It's surely a painful decision to leave a place he fought so hard to get back to. How did he go from such a courageous player in the first half of last year to one who had no confidence whatsoever by season's end?

He lost his starting job to Malik Zaire at the Motor City Bowl. Maybe he would have earned it back. But sometimes, you just need a change.

We judge character too easily and too quickly and base it on not enough information. They made a movie out of Rudy's character, and he ended up years later paying hundreds of thousands of dollars after cutting a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a fraud charge.

Golson's story isn't finished yet. His best is still ahead of him.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report.