Wooten plans to leave Tar Heels, kick elsewhere

By: By Bill Cole | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: July 01, 2009

Jay Wooten is prepared to sacrifice another season of eligibility to be the kicker for a major-college football team.

Wooten will leave North Carolina but isn't sure which school he'll attend next. He knows, however, that he wants to handle all of the kicking for a program in the Football Bowl Subdivision, something he wasn't going to be able to do at North Carolina.

"It came down to the simple fact that I didn't think I could live with myself if I didn't at least give it a shot and see if I could maybe do something somewhere else," he said. "I don't know how it will work out, but I decided to take a chance and see where it takes me."

Wooten, from Laurinburg, redshirted at North Carolina as a freshman in 2007, leaving him three seasons of eligibility. Transferring to an FBS program will require that he sit out a season under NCAA rules, which will leave him two seasons of eligibility.

If he decides to transfer down at least one division, he will be eligible immediately. Wooten can't start looking at other schools until North Carolina releases him from his national letter of intent, but he said he expects Coach Butch Davis to grant the release soon.

"I spoke to Coach Davis and told him I'm not upset or bitter or angry at anybody," Wooten said. "I love the University of North Carolina, my teammates and the coaching staff. Those guys will be in my wedding one day."

Wooten handled mostly kickoffs last season. He also made four of six field-goal attempts and all 11 of his extra-point attempts.

Casey Barth, a rising sophomore, will most likely do all of the Tar Heels' kicking with Wooten gone. Barth made 10 of 15 field-goal attempts and all 29 of his extra-point attempts last season to finish as the Tar Heels' No. 2 scorer behind wide receiver Hakeem Nicks.

East Carolina has received a commitment from Desi Brown, a 6-2, 200-pound quarterback from Norwood and South Stanly High School.

Brown passed for 900 yards and 11 touchdowns as a junior last season and rushed for 550 yards and seven touchdowns. Some schools recruited him as a linebacker or safety, but Brown wants to play quarterback in college.

Coach Luke Little of South Stanly said that Duke, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and Louisville also had an interest Brown, who has been timed at 4.57 seconds in the 40-yard dash.

"He's one of the hardest workers on the team and definitely one of the strongest," Little said. "It's understandable when you have a great athlete like he is that schools might want to put him at other positions, but East Carolina said he could have a shot at playing quarterback, and that meant a lot to him."

■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.