Mauk update

Ben Mauk is taking one more shot at securing another year of eligibility to play football at the University of Cincinnati.
UC coach Brian Kelly said Friday that Mauk has provided the school with additional information regarding an injury he suffered before he enrolled at Wake Forest in 2003 that precluded him from playing for the Demon Deacons during his true freshman year.
Mauk was redshirted as a freshman at Wake. He enrolled at UC as a graduate student last year and became the Bearcats’ starting quarterback after injuries to his arm and his shoulder wiped out all but one game of his junior year at Wake Forest.
But the NCAA ruled on Feb. 12 that Mauk was not entitled to a sixth year in which to complete his five years of eligibility because his redshirt year as a freshman was not the result of an injury, but a decision by the school to have him sit out.
Now Mauk apparently is claiming that an injury would have prevented him from playing to his full potential that year anyway.
“He’s essentially including some additional information to the original information he sent out,” Kelly said, “that going into his first year at Wake he had a screw put in his foot. He’s got medical documentation. We’re submitting it on his behalf and we’ll see where it takes him.”
Mike Mauk, Ben’s father and high school coach at Kenton (Ohio) High School, confirmed Friday that he and Ben had provided UC with additional information, but would not go into specifics.
“We’re going to wait and see what they say,” Mike Mauk said. “I don’t know that I want to say everything right now.”
Kelly said the school plans to submit the new information to the NCAA within the next few days.
“We’re waiting for some additional medical information from the surgeon that took care of Ben,” Kelly said.
Asked why Mauk didn’t submit this information as part of his original request for a hardship waiver, Kelly said, “I think Ben’s got some clarity in his own mind relative to what the NCAA was looking for. What they were looking for was two separate seasons where he was affected by an injury.
“It put his attention now on, OK, well in 2003 I was redshirted., but here’s the deal. I couldn’t be the quarterback I wanted to be in the spread offense. He’s claiming, and he’s got medical documentation to back it up, that after track season, they put a screw in his foot.”
Mauk’s claim could be hurt by a comment he made last month after he learned that his hardship waiver had been denied, when he told reporters it wasn’t his idea to redshirt as a freshman.
“I thought I could help the team out,” he said, “and I wasn’t allowed to play, so I thought it was out of my control.”