A touted 2015 signee has decided to head east in an attempt to restart his collegiate career — and repair his battered image in the process.
Marshall confirmed in a press release late this past week that Davon Durant has joined the Thundering Herd football program. He will be forced to sit out the 2015 season but will be permitted to practice with his new Herd teammates.
Beginning in 2016, he will then have two years of eligibility remaining.
“We are fully aware of Davon’s situation at Arizona State and take very seriously all of the issues he once faced,” Herd head coach Doc Holliday said in a statement. “We have done our due diligence in reviewing all available information, as we do with any student-athlete who enters our program. We are comfortable with the information we have gathered and all of the individuals with whom we have spoken are confident that Davon will embrace this opportunity to represent Marshall Athletics and this university with class.”
While Holliday and the program may be comfortable with the addition, there may be others who aren’t as much.
The 2015 Arizona State signee was involved in a March domestic violence incident in which he was initially charged with one count of felony aggravated assault and three counts of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Three months later, he reached a plea agreement in which he was sentenced to two years of supervised probation.
It was alleged at the time of the incident that the female victim was hit by Durant “in the face once and grabbed… around the neck,” leading to “visible injuries, including a bruise below her left eye and bruising around her neck that was consistent with finger marks.” The victim, Durant’s still-girlfriend Kelsi Langley, had previously recanted her initial claims even as there were multiple eyewitnesses who corroborated her original story.
Despite the plea deal that reduced the charges down to a single misdemeanor, ASU head coach Todd Graham confirmed in mid-July that he and the player had “parted ways,” saying that “[n]o matter what the legal system does, our standards are high, and our guys know that.”
Coming out of Butler County Community College, Durant was a four-star member of ASU’s 2015 recruiting class. Durant, a South Carolina native, had actually been a verbal commitment to South Carolina during part of his time at the Kansas JUCO, but flipped his commitment to ASU in October.
An early enrollee who participated in spring practice, Durant was viewed as a player who could’ve made an immediate impact on the Sun Devils’ defense in 2015.
(Photo credit: Rivals.com)
