Former Notre Dame and Florida State quarterback Everett Golson has signed with the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, according to 3DownNation. He is perhaps best known as the starting QB for the 2012 Fighting Irish squad that reached the National Championship. Beating out Tommy Rees for the job in late August, Golson led them to a 12-0 record as a redshirt freshman. He was suspended for the whole 2013 season because of academic violations. He returned in 2014 on a high note, but fell apart late in the season. Coaches benched him in favor of Malik Zaire, who impressed enough to go into the 2015 offseason as the starter.
With a quarterback battle that included Zaire and redshirt sophomore DeShone Kizer ahead of him, Golson was on the outside looking in on Notre Dame’s depth chart. He transferred to Florida State in May of 2015. As Jameis Winston departed for the NFL Draft, Golson had big shoes to fill. He did well in the first half of the year: FSU started off 6-0 under him. However, in an upset loss to Georgia Tech, he suffered a concussion. Florida State benched him in favor of redshirt junior Sean Maguire, and Maguire took the reigns for most of the season. Golson’s only start the rest of the year was against North Carolina State, in which the Seminoles benched him as well. He only saw action off of the bench the remainder of the year.
Golson left FSU after the season to go to the NFL Draft, but no teams chose to gamble on him. In fact, the NFL didn’t even invite him to the Combine! After going undrafted, Golson attended rookie mini-camps with the Colts and Eagles, but he left without a contract. He now joins the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats; a team which made the divisional final just this past year.
