After Saturday’s 52-14 beat down of Ole Miss, Tennessee Volunteer fans waived goodbye to the Rebels until the 2014 season. They also waived goodbye to Jerrell “I Has a Crayon” Powe.
More than two years ago, we were told the joyous news that Ole Miss defensive tackle Jerrell Powe had finally achieved academic clearance and was eligible to play football for the Black Bears.
Powe was a five-star prospect signed by then Ole Miss coach Ed Oregeron as part of the Rebels 2006 recruiting class.
The 6-2, 340-pound Powe was rated as the fifth best defensive tackle prospect in the nation by Scout.
The highly sought prospect was pursued by dozens of college football programs around the nation, but there was one minor caveat in his recruitment.
Powe wasn’t exactly the best student on the planet. In fact, he wasn’t a very good student at all.
Powe didn’t qualify academically to attend Ole Miss in 2005 and enrolled at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia, a school known as being a pipeline for providing talented players to college football programs.
After attending Hargrave for a year, Powe was still unable to meet academic standards and was turned down by the admissions staff at Ole Miss.
Seeing that his promising football career was in jeopardy because of those silly academics, Powe took his case before a judge.
During the hearing, Powe brought his mother along to serve as a character witness. In her statement to the judge, Powe’s mother said, “Jerrell really is a good child, but he just can’t read.”
Poor Jerrell couldn’t read, but man could he get after opposing quarterbacks.
Powe was finally cleared to play for the Rebels in July 2008 after he’d graduated from high school three years earlier.
On Saturday the senior defensive tackle played his last game against Tennessee, and Vols fans wept along with Shepard Smith because the young man who couldn’t read would no longer be seen at Neyland Stadium.
Nearing the end of his very long college football career, Powe might graduate from Ole Miss in the spring of 2011, but it might be best if no one held their breath.
Thus ends the saga of Jerrell “I Has a Crayon” Powe, and somewhere a man named Third Down H-Back is smiling.
