This story contains material that has been clarified in the print edition of The Diamondback.
Terrapin backup quarterback Josh Portis said in an interview Sunday that he was declared ineligible from playing this season after he was formally found guilty Friday of cheating on a pop quiz during a spring semester class.
Portis declined to go into detail about what happened during the pop quiz or the process afterward. Coach Ralph Friedgen said the incident occurred during the spring semester but the final ruling wasn’t made until Friday, a day before the Terp football team’s season opener. Friedgen also said it was the university’s decision, not the team’s decision.
The Terrapins had pinned their quarterbacking hopes on Portis throughout much of the offseason before naming junior Jordan Steffy the starting quarterback. The team can still hold out hope for Portis’ return next year, the sophomore said in an interview, because he has no plans to transfer.
“No, no, no, no, no, I ain’t going nowhere,” he said in response to a question about whether he would wait out his suspension. “I appreciate everybody supporting me before the season was gonna start. I’m always gonna be loyal to the university.”
He also told The Diamondback that he viewed the incident as a learning experience that he would recover from.
“What I’m going through right now is a life-changing experience,” Portis said. “It’s the one time I’ve made a mistake in my life. It’s gonna make me a better person. People just gotta understand where I’m coming from. Obviously I made a mistake. Everybody’s gonna have an opinion on the situation, but I’m a good kid, and I just made a mistake.”
The Athletics Department quietly handed out a press release to the media Saturday night, about 45 minutes before the game began.
“Losing Josh definitely is not helping our football team,” Friedgen said after the Terps’ 31-14 win over Villanova. “He was a very good player for us. This puts us in a real tough situation at quarterback right now.”
Portis watched Saturday’s game from a relative’s house in Washington. He said he chose not to attend the game because he did not want to be a distraction to his teammates.
“It’s unfortunate,” starting quarterback Jordan Steffy said. “My prayers go out to him and his family. Anytime something like that happens, you gotta feel bad for him and all you can do is wish for the best for him.”
“Kids make mistakes,” Friedgen said. “This is no indication to what that person is. I think he’s a great character kid, who like all of us, makes mistakes sometimes. Right now Josh is hurting. I told our players that they need to get with him and support him. He’s part of our team.”
Several phone calls to the university’s Student Honor Council were unreturned, but on the council’s website, the Code of Academic Integrity lists four acts that fall under academic dishonesty: cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty and plagiarism.
“If the Honor Board finds that an attempt or act of academic dishonesty did occur, it shall impose an appropriate sanction,” according to the Code of Academic Integrity.
The Code also states a student has the right to file an appeal, and a ruling will be made by majority vote from an “Executive Committee.”
Portis may have filed an appeal, which could be part of the reason there was at least a four-month gap between the incident and the ruling.
“I can’t talk about it,” Friedgen said when asked about the possibility of an appeal.
Portis transferred from Florida to the Terps in January 2006 and sat out last season due to NCAA eligibility rules. He is a redshirt sophomore this year and will have two years of eligibility remaining when the season ends.
“I’m gonna be ready for next season,” Portis said. “It’s gonna be real exciting, and it’s gonna be fun to watch. [There’s] a lot of motivation on my shoulders.
Friedgen said Portis would help out for the rest of this season as part of the scout team during practices.
“My job is to make him the best he can possibly be, but my job is also winning football games, and so I gotta try to do both,” Friedgen said. “But right now, the overriding thing is I gotta win football games. I [would] be doing the team a disservice if I didn’t do that. That doesn’t mean I can’t organize it so I’m doing the best I can to help him develop, and I’m gonna try to work that out from an organizational standpoint while still giving us the best chance to win.”
The Terps are down to just three scholarship quarterbacks now for the rest of the season – Steffy, Chris Turner and Jamarr Robinson.
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Clarification: This story may have confused readers about what suspended quarterback Josh Portis actually said during an interview in which he discussed his suspension for violating the Code of Academic Integrity. Portis has said publicly that he violated the Code of Academic Integrity, and during the interview said the incident took place during a pop quiz, but he never explicitly described the incident as cheating.
