Nebraska Football: Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda hints his departure might not have been entirely his decision
Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda shed some light on why he decided to come back to Nebraska football, and the light he shone seemed to hint at a clash.
It might not surprise Nebraska football fans that there was apparently a bit of strife between former head coach Mickey Joseph and Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda. After all the wide receiver entered the transfer portal pretty early in the 2022 season. IGC’s father talked slightly about that strife when he insinuated that Joseph had lied to and about his son.
During press availability earlier this week, Isaiah stood at the podium for about a ten minute session where he was peppered with questions. To the shock of no one, the first spate of queries were all about his decision to leave and why he decided to come back to Nebraska football.
While the receiver was careful not to throw his former position and then head coach under the bus, some reading between the lines demonstrated a player that wasn’t happy with the previous regime and maybe also didn’t make the decision to enter the portal 100 percent on his own.
"“I never wanted to leave in the first place, to be honest with you. I didn’t expect last year to go the way that it did necessarily so I just felt like was almost like a fresh start.”"
After Garcia-Castaneda gave that answer, it seemed more than a few members of the media thought there might be a hidden message in those comments. One reported asked him if he felt as though he “had no choice” but to leave last year.
“Um,” he said as he adjusted his shoulder pads so that they could only be adjusted when a player is emotionally and uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t say that. I think last year was … I don’t really like to talk about it too much. I think last year was last year, I think a lot of things were kinda all over the place in every aspect of the team.”
New Nebraska football coaches welcome him back
After skirting around just what led to his departure from the team a year ago, Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda talked about how he made his return. He made it clear that he was the one who reached out to the new staff.
Specifically, it was new offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield that made the call and agreed to let the receiver come back to the Nebraska football team.
It’s hard to ignore that things went very, very wrong, even under head coach Mickey Joseph. Now the receiver has a fresh start. What he does with that fresh start is going to be very telling and might shed even more light on just who or what was behind his exit last season.