Former Hog Ty Washington pours gas on Arkansas/ND matchup
One of the marquee matchups for Arkansas football this season will take place in Week 5 when the Hogs take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
There will be some extra storylines that weekend, as former Arkansas tight end Ty Washington is now a member of the Fighting Irish. He was dismissed from the team after the Hogs’ game against Mississippi State, and subsequently transferred to Notre Dame in the offseason.
Washington met with the media on Friday and seemed to pour some more gasoline on the fire of the Razorbacks’ upcoming showdown against the defending national runner-up.
What Washington said about difference between Notre Dame and Arkansas
Most of the time, when someone transfers to a different school, they keep things coy. They don’t mention specifics, names, or the like. Washington took a different approach when asked about the difference in practice styles.
“The community, to be honest,” Washington said of the difference between Arkansas and Notre Dame. “The community out here is great. The locker room, that’s a big difference. At Arkansas, after practice everyone would just leave 15 minutes after they came in from practice. Here, there’s probably still guys in there just playing, talking, chopping it up.”
Washington was dismissed from the Arkansas program last season after he refused to go into the game against Mississippi State. He told the 4th and 5 podcast later that he had just learned his grandmother was in hospice care, and his mental health wasn’t right.
“During the game, (the coaching staff) asked me to go in in the fourth quarter and I told my coach (Morgan Turner) no,” Washington said. “I said I’m not going in and I spoke to the player development guy and I told him I’m not okay and I need counseling. He told me to try to work it out and just fight through it on the field and go back into the game and then we’ll talk about it on Monday in the meetings and stuff.
“So I said ‘Okay.’ I went and told the coaches I’m okay to go in, but I was trying to tell them I’m not okay mentally but if you need me I’m here. To be honest, we were playing Mississippi State. Our team was kicking butt, our tight ends were doing their thing. Shoutout to Luke (Hasz) and shoutout to Andreas (Paaske) because they were playing a hell of a ballgame. To be honest, I didn’t think that I needed to go in to just try to fight through something and look bad or mess up the team in general when I’m already going through something mentally.
“To be honest, that messed me up and I should’ve taken accountability for that because that was the reason why I was thrown off the team — for not going into the game. I know I could’ve handled it differently, but at the time I let that shut me down. And it shut me down because mentally I’ve been going through a lot of stuff and physically I’ve been going through a lot of stuff. It broke me down a little bit. I’m only human.”
ALSO READ: Andreas Paaske leading Razorbacks’ tight end room
Washington adds even more fuel to Week 5 matchup
Arkansas’ Week 5 matchup against Notre Dame didn’t need much extra fire. The Fighting Irish are fresh off a National Championship appearance, and appear locked and loaded for another run in the College Football Playoff.
Still, the game means something a little extra to Washington. He said he still has love for the fans, but he noticed something about the crowd, according to a post from Mike Berardino with the South Bend Tribune.
“It’s going to be very, very hectic,” Washington said. “They get loud. The fan base gets in there quick; the student section gets in there fast. But if you really shut them out quick, it’ll be done.
“Very hot. The fan base will be quiet; everybody will go home. It’s too hot at Arkansas. Everybody wants to go home if they’re losing. They just go on. They just want to leave
Ty Washington is okay with the ‘villain’ role
Naturally, the Razorback faithful won’t take too kindly to those words. But given everything he went through in the past year, he’s okay with being called that.
“If some want to call me the villain, they can call me the villain,” he said, “but I think mental health is a strong topic that many people don’t talk about. When my grandma was about to pass … that really hit me at home, and I tried to tell them that. For my dad (Donta), that was his only parent.
“Some people have different views on how mental health affects people,” he said. “I was always raised to be there for somebody, try to be a shoulder to lean on. Some people believe strapping up the helmet or tying your shoelaces or strapping up shoulder pads is going to help you get over that, and that’s not the case with everybody.”
ALSO READ: Rohan Jones details his journey from Canada to Arkansas
