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On the six-hour bus ride home from a game last fall, the Division II football player staring out the window had time to think.
About life. About choices. About the road ahead. And the road behind. The bus passed through the college town of Norman, Okla. The football player grew sad. That football player was former Division I running back DeAngelo Evans, the former Nebraska star who had left the Huskers two games into 1999, then had wanted back on the team but was refused. "I saw the exit sign to the University of Oklahoma and its stadium," Evans said. "And my mind just kind of wandered off. I thought about the two touchdowns I got at that stadium my freshman year with Nebraska. And I had a lot of sad feelings inside. "I thought, 'Just a few years ago, I was playing there. Now I'm on a bus going by it.'" Four hours later, that bus pulled up to Emporia State, the Kansas school where Evans ended his college career last fall with little fanfare.
Emporia State beat East Central Oklahoma that day, in Ada. Nebraska beat Notre Dame that day, in a game televised nationally from South Bend, Ind. Leaving the Huskers, Evans said, was a mistake. A mistake he knew he'd made as soon as the big red door slammed shut and he was on the long road home to Wichita, Kan. A mistake he said had a lot to do with his not getting selected in the recent NFL draft. A mistake he said he's learned from. "There wasn't a day in the year I left that I wasn't like, 'Man, what would it be like being at Nebraska right now?'" Evans said by phone from Wichita a few days back. "I was there 31/2 years. It becomes a part of you-the atmosphere. The fans. The whole Nebraska way. "I made a bad decision. I shouldn't have left." Evans left because he didn't like how he was being used in the offense. He thought his role was being diminished. A few days later, he realized his mistake and asked Coach Frank Solich if he could come back. In a volatile meeting with Solich following a team vote, Solich told Evans he wasn't welcomed back. From then until that Christmas, Evans said, he was "very depressed." "I was very, very disappointed in how everything ended for me at Nebraska," he said. "But it was no reflection on how I felt about Nebraska. I've always felt it was a quality program." He said he used that time to think about where his life was going. He knew he still wanted to play football. He decided to play at Emporia State, a school about an hour from Wichita. Emporia State, Evans said, was a good experience. He made friends. He got a degree. He had time to think. But playing football there, he said, was a "humbling experience." Practices were harder than at Nebraska -full pads three times a week and more "hitting." Rushing was harder than at Nebraska. Evans said his offensive line was mostly true freshmen. He no longer had guys in front of him like Dominic Raiola, the Huskers' All-America center, or Russ Hochstein or Jason Schwab. And, Evans said, he no longer had that electric Husker atmosphere to pump him up. "At Nebraska, you know you're going to be playing on ABC," he said. "You know you're going to be in the top five or 10 teams in the nation. "You might not be as motivated to play when you get to the stadium Saturday morning, but when you were warming up there, you'd start feeling that atmosphere, and the excitement from the fans. That's what I missed the most, the energy from the fans. "It wasn't like that in Emporia. At Emporia, nobody cared about football - women's basketball was the biggest thing there." Evans said his motivation had to come from within. "At first I had thought, 'I'm going to dominate Division II. I'm going to rush for all these yards,'" Evans said. "But I really learned how much of a team game football really is." Evans, dogged by injuries at Nebraska, stayed healthy at Emporia State. He rushed for 1,256 yards and 14 touchdowns - "decent" numbers, he said, but not dominating numbers. Emporia State finished with a 6-5 record. In January, he made the Division II all-star game in Orlando. But during a passing drill before the game, Evans tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left leg. Evans said his leg is 95 percent back. He's working out in Wichita. He still sees football in his future. Next month, he'll work out for about 15 NFL teams in hopes of getting picked up as a free agent. Evans said he had hoped an NFL team would select him in the April 21 and 22 draft. No call came. He said teams were worried about how his leg would heal. And teams had another concern, he said-what happened with him and Nebraska. "Everybody wanted to know what happened at Nebraska and why," he said. "The NFL wants good people as well as good players. And with my situation at Nebraska, everybody might have thought I was a bad person. A lot of teams had that perception of me. "I was honest with them. I told them how I felt, that if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have left. I wouldn't have handled it the way I did. "I've definitely matured from it. And learned from it. I think things at Nebraska were just going so bad for me I never saw them getting better." One of Evans' best friends is Correll Buckhalter, the Husker I-back who was drafted in the fourth round by Philadelphia. The two talk several times a week. Evans said he's also talked with Husker I-back Dan Alexander, taken in the sixth round by Tennessee. Evans said his two former backfield mates should have gone higher in the draft. "I just got off the phone with Correll," Evans said. "He's so excited. I was happy for all the guys from Nebraska who got drafted. No matter how things ended, they were my teammates." Evans said he and Solich haven't talked since the split. Evans said he has no hard feelings toward his former coach. He said it made him feel good when he heard that Solich had called Emporia State's coach last fall to see how Evans was doing. "I realize now that I put Coach Solich in a bad situation," Evans said. "He didn't have a choice. Leaving Nebraska was my fault. I take the blame. I was frustrated. But the way I handled it was very immature." The 1999 season had started with one drama after another for Solich, in his second year as head coach that year. First there was the quarterback controversy after he chose Bobby Newcombe to start over Eric Crouch, and rumors flew that Crouch wanted to quit. Then Buckhalter, unhappy with his playing time, went AWOL a few days. Then Evans quit. Evans said his leaving helped the Huskers, who went on to win the Big 12 championship and finish second in the national rankings. "The situation with me seemed to help Solich as a head coach," Evans said. "He was able to make a stand, and everybody on Nebraska's team came together and played like that the whole year. "I was happy for them. Despite what happened, I'm still a Husker fan. I'm still a Husker for life." If he had stayed a Husker player, Evans said, there's a good chance he'd be in the NFL now. But all the twists and turns along the way have taught him a lot. About life. About choices. About the road ahead. "I think everything will work out for me," Evans said. "I've been through a lot. But everything happens for a reason. "And I can't turn back now."
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