Chris Conetzkey – Daily Staff Writer

Former ISU football coach Gene Chizik held a team meeting after Thanksgiving break in which he told players “he wouldn’t quit”, ISU wide receiver Darius Darks said.

“I’m more upset than most because it takes me a long time to trust,” Darks said. “I’ve had a lot of people walk in and out of my life, and for this to happen it is like it is happening all over again. I traveled 1,000 miles to get away from all that, and now it happens here.”

The meeting was held in response to rumors that surfaced in November that Chizik was unhappy at Iowa State. Chizik also said at a press conference that the rumors were not true and that, “Anybody who knows myself, my wife, my family, they know that we are firmly entrenched here in Ames.”

Darks said many of the players, especially the freshmen and sophomores Chizik brought in, are upset at his sudden departure to take the head coaching job at Auburn. He also said they found out by watching TV and following the story on the internet.

ISU athletic director Jamie Pollard has since held a meeting with the team, Darks said, and Pollard told the team he was going to go to work immediately to find them a new coach. The team has since tried to rally together, and the general consensus, Darks said, is that everyone wants to sit put until the future is more clear because they feel they have a good team.

“We still got a good team,” Darks said. “I mean we sweated and cried together.”

Still, some players are “anxious to leave” because of the coaching switch, Darks said, but he declined to give any names.

Darks posted two videos to his Facebook profile after learning about Chizik, that voiced his and his teammates’ displeasure at being “lied” to by Chizik. Read the story

Both videos have since been removed, and he has since posted an apology video. Read the story

“When I posted the video I was angry, and i wanted people to know that I was angry,” Darks said. “I realized that some of the things that I said in the video kind of degraded my character, I don’t want people to think that that’s the type of person that I am, that that’s the type of person that my mother raised.”

Darks showed great potential in his freshman season, recording 49 receptions for 477 yards at wide receiver in 2008.