After opting back in, Minnesota WR Rashod Bateman opts out of rest of 2020 season
Rashod Bateman’s final season of college football lasted five games.
Minnesota’s star wide receiver said Wednesday that his college football career is over and that he would be opting out of the remainder of the 2020 season to prep for the NFL. Bateman originally said that he wouldn’t play football at all this season after the Big Ten postponed the start of its season. But he decided to return to play before the season got underway in October.
Bateman is a potential first-round pick in the 2021 NFL draft.
“After further dialogue with Coach [P.J.] Fleck and my family, we decided that after this most recent COVID-19 outbreak and the cancellation of this weekend’s game that it made the most sense to begin to focus on the next stage of my career,” Bateman wrote in a farewell letter he posted to social media.
Thank you Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/ANVtBYnCdr
— Rashod Bateman (@R_bateman2) November 25, 2020
Minnesota’s game against Wisconsin was canceled earlier in the week because of COVID-19 cases among the Gophers. It will be the first year that the two longtime rivals won’t play each other since 1906 if the game is not made up.
Minnesota’s record also likely played a role in Bateman’s decision. The Gophers are 2-3 and not in position to play for the Big Ten title.
Bateman is the only player with over 15 catches for the Gophers in 2020. He has 36 catches for 472 yards and has caught two of the four touchdown passes that QB Tanner Morgan has thrown. Bateman had 60 catches for 1,219 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2019.
Bateman wore No. 13 in 2019 and switched to wear No. 0 in 2020. He said he made the decision to wear No. 0 to speak out against racism. He said the number stood for having zero tolerance for racism in society.
More from Yahoo Sports:
