Nebraska football: Decker departure is big hit to the offensive line

The Nebraska football team had yet another player announce they would not be returning in 2018.

Mike Decker announced that he is quitting football. The starting center for the Nebraska football team in 2017 doesn’t appear to be leaving school but he is ending his playing career.

In a summer that has seen some Cornhuskers decide to leave, Decker’s announcement might be the most damaging. While Frost and company have upgrade the team at a number of positions, the offensive line was already still going to be a work in progress.

Now that the team is going to have to replace a main cog of its starting offensive line, that work has hit a bit of a hitch. In his announcement, using his official Twitter account, Mike made it clear that he has been thinking about hanging up the spikes for quite a while now.

“Over the past six months, I have taken a step back and looked at my future career goals and decided I can no longer accommodate football’s commitments.” He stated.

Decker added that the decision to quit playing football didn’t come lightly. He added it was quite a bit harder because of the amazing people he met while he was playing football.

It’s hard to feel animus towards a player who decides they don’t want to be a player anymore. This isn’t a situation where he is pouting about playing time or how some coach talked to him.

Next: Joe Burrow chooses to go to the SEC

It’s better for a Nebraska football player who doesn’t feel the pull of the game, to hang it up instead of going out and putting their health at risk because they can’t put everything behind it. Mike Decker follows teammates Ben Miles, Patrick O’Brien and Keyan Williams who have officially announced they are going to play football for another school next year.