Over the course of the past couple of seasons, if there was a story worth rooting for it would have been that of Pitt middle linebacker Dan Mason.
Mason’s triumphant return to the field after suffering a gruesome knee injury he suffered during an ESPN Thursday night game in 2010 against the Miami Hurricanes was one of heart and determination.
But after two long years of rehab to make it back to the field last season, it appeared that Mason couldn’t catch a break when he suffered a lacerated liver making a tackle in late October against Temple.
Mason’s return was derailed once again when he was left off the Pitt football roster for the 2013 season.
The Penn Hills graduate would have been a redshirt senior this season. He missed all of Pitt’s spring drills tending to off-the-field issues. Now it appears that there won’t be another comeback in Mason’s future.
Mason played in all 13 games for Pitt as a freshman in 2009, but nearly lost his career with the horrific knee injury in 2010.
That injury was so bad that he missed the rest of that year and all of the 2011 season.
He did make it all the way back though and returned to the Panthers in 2012 and appeared in five games, starting two.
Mason had 27 tackles in those five games and 1.5 sacks and was slowly starting to look better before the lacerated liver derailed him once again.
It’s often sad to see a story such as Mason’s end the way it did, but unfortunately it appears Mason’s story as a Pitt Panther won’t have the happy ending that many probably hoped that it would.
In other roster news, offensive lineman Arthur Doakes is also no longer on the Panthers roster. Doakes played in 12 games in 2012, starting four and has transferred to Stony Brook.
However quarterback Tra’von Chapman and defensive lineman Khaynin Mosley-Smith are on the updated roster, though both remain on suspension for legal troubles.
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