Mauk, Kelly reactions

Mauk said he thought he had a good chance to get the extra year, but that he respected the NCAA's decision.
"Those two years were out of my control with redshirting and getting hurt," he said. "I had no choice in either of those years where I couldn't participate.
"It's not like I went into (Wake Forest) Coach (Jim) Grobe's office and said, 'Hey, Coach, I want to sit out this year. I don't want to play.' Coming in as a freshman, I wanted to play. Obviously, you never want to sit out. I thought I could help the team out and I wasn't allowed to play so I thought it was out of my control."
According to NCAA rules, a redshirt year is under the control of the coach and/or the student-athlete. In other words, according to the NCAA, Mauk could have refused to redshirt.
That's basically what this came down to.
"Are we disappointed?" said UC coach Brian Kelly. "Absolutely. There's no question that we're disappointed. I don't know I would say we were surprised when it came to this. We were prepared for the worst and hoping for the best.
"The NCAA had come back to us and asked for additional medical information and maybe we were wrong in assuming it was going to come down to a decision relative to the medical, but it really had nothing to do with that. It was still about the redshirt year in 2003."
UC' s contention was that even if Mauk did have a choice in redshirting in 2003, granting him a sixth year would not have benefited Wake Forest because he's no longer there. Obviously, the NCAA didn' t buy that reasoning.
Kelly said if the season started to tomorrow, senior Dustin Grutza would be UC's starting quarterback, but the season is a long way off. Obviously, the job is wide open, with Notre Dame expected to challenge Grutza for the starting job.