VALDOSTA— Week one starting quarterback Jimmy Coy has quit the VSU football team.
 The decision came less than a week after the 5-foot-10-inch quarterback was passed up on the VSU depth chart by redshirt freshman Brett Whitmire.
 Coy informed head coach David Dean earlier this week that he was leaving the team and  withdrawing from his classes.
 According to Dean, Coy will be moving to another school closer to his home in Chicago where he believes he can be a starter. After receiving the news Coy was leaving, Dean said he was surprised by the news.

 “I was a little shocked. I never thought he was going to leave,” Dean said. “When he explained to me about what had happened and why he was leaving, I understood. He wants an opportunity to play two years of football somewhere else. I support him in that and I told him that I would help him find somewhere to go if he wanted me to do that. It hurts that he left and especially when he did. We have to move on and we can’t worry about the people that aren’t here, we can only worry about the people that are here, and that is exactly what we are going to do.”
 For Coy to be eligible to play two years at another school, he will be required to appeal to the NCAA, because he played in the VSU season opener. If Coy is not successful in the appeals process, he will only be eligible for one year at another institution.
 “It is going to be very difficult,” Dean said. “There have been cases where some have gotten a year back. Since he only played three quarters of a game, they may allow him another year. That is out of our hands and that is strictly up to the NCAA.”
 In the season opener against Wingate, Coy was benched during the third quarter after he completed 11 of 27 passes for 101 yards and no touchdowns.
Coy had transferred to VSU from El Camino Junior College (CA) prior to the 2009 season.   Upon his arrival he was redshirted by the coaching staff due to the arrival of quarterback Kellen Lewis. Coy entered fall camp as the second string quarterback, however he was in an open competition for the starting job with senior Russ Callaway, who tore his ACL during the Blazers first scrimmage.
 With the dismissal of Coy and the injury to Callaway, VSU is left with four quarterbacks, only two of which have thrown a pass at VSU.
 “Obviously it hurts us a little bit,” Dean said. “We had very good depth. Coming into camp we felt very good with Russ, Jimmy, Brett and Austen Roberts and even Justin Roberts. But we had five very good quarterbacks and of course we lost Russ and now we’ve lost Jimmy who is going to transfer, so it depletes us because we wanted to redshirt Justin Roberts and now he is our third quarterback. We went from having six quarterbacks in the program to four. We want to redshirt (Justin) and one will be our JV quarterback, so right now we have just two quarterbacks that have played in our system.”
Although the Blazers are short handed at the quarterback position, Dean confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the door does not open to senior running back Ronnye Nelson—who played quarterback in high school.
“He is going to be a running back,” Dean said. “We are still going to do the same thing with him and put him in there with our wildcat type package and use him that way. He can still throw the ball and is still a threat to throw it.”
The Blazers will take to the field for the first time in the post Jimmy Coy era on Saturday when they welcome conference rival Delta State to Bazemore-Hyder Stadium.