First string linebacker to leave IU football

Junior linebacker Paul Szczesny, the third-leading tackler on the team, has decided to leave the IU football program and transfer. Szczesny is the second player in the past month to transfer from the Hoosiers.\nWhen former IU running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis decided to transfer he cited closeness to home as the one of the main reasons. Closeness to home wasn't as much an issue for Szczesny. The changing of regimes in the program, as Terry Hoeppner replaced Gerry DiNardo as head football coach Dec. 17., made a bigger impact on his decision.\n"To me it was just like starting all over again, if I was going to start all over again I might as well go somewhere else" Szczesny said. "Something didn't seem right; especially when the proof was there that we were getting better."\nSzczesny said his loyalty to the coaches that brought him both to Bloomington and the brink of success forced him to feel uneasy about the Hoosiers.\n"One of the reasons I committed here was DiNardo and his staff," the Niles, Ill. native said. "We made a lot of great strides and we were five plays away from going to a bowl game."\nEven though Szczesny will no longer be a part of the Hoosier football program he is still currently enrolled in classes at IU and plans to finish out the semester.\nSzczesny wouldn't comment on specific schools he is looking at, but mentioned that he would like to stay in the Big Ten or go back out West.\nSzczesny didn't rule out going to a program where one of the coaches that recruited him was at. Current University of Arizona linebackers coach Tim Kish recruited Szczesny while he was at Niles Notre Dame High School in Niles, Ill. \nEven though he is a junior and will be forced to sit out until 2006, and will only have a year of eligibility left, he understands the risk, he said.\n"I have been thinking about it for a while and I came to the point I'm not happy here," Szczesny said. "I love the school, and everything about Indiana, but I don't love IU football anymore."\nThe Illinois native came to the Hoosiers via the junior college route from Pima Community College in Tucson, Ariz. \nAfter earning All-American honors from the Web site www.jcfootball.com his freshman year he became a nationally recruited player.\nIn addition to being recruited by IU, Szczesny was sought by Wisconsin, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Southern California.\nAfter mulling over the decision to remain a part of the football program or not, Szczesny decided it was time to move on, he said.\nSzczesny came in as one of the Hoosiers' highest recruits in 2004 as a three-star player from www.rivals.com and made immediate contributions, notching nine tackles in IU's upset win over then No. 24 Oregon 30-24. His career high in tackles as a Hoosier was 13 at Northwestern.\nAfter contemplating the decision to transfer or not, he told Hoeppner the news Friday.\n"There is a lot of enthusiasm around our program right now, as there should be. We're excited about our recruiting class, and I really like our attitude in winter conditioning," Hoeppner said in statement. "We're disappointed that Paul is leaving, but we wish him the best in his future endeavors."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Dan Click at daaclick@indiana.edu.