Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio confirmed during today’s Big Ten Media Day that linebacker Jon Reschke, who left the program in February 2017, has been reinstated.

Reschke left the program at that time, saying he “lost control of my emotions and made an insensitive and totally regrettable comment involving a former teammate,” in a statement announcing his intention to transfer from MSU to exhaust his eligibility elsewhere.

Subsequent to the inappropriate comments, using the N-word, the MSU linebacker suffered a non-football knee injury, and Dantonio and his staff began having conversations about the possibility of opening a door for Reschke to make a comeback.

Notably, he will not be on scholarship, and Dantonio stressed his path to a full return is an ongoing, incremental process. Dantonio first approached the team’s leadership council about the subject of bringing Reschke back, then he asked them to gauge the feelings of the rest of the team before they all discussed it as a program and ultimately chose to give Reschke an opportunity.

Reschke apologized at the time of his departure because, in his words, “In an argument and a brief moment of anger, I lost control of my emotions and made an insensitive and totally regrettable comment involving a former teammate.”

“Honestly don’t know who for sure but probably (teammate’s name redacted) or another s****y f*****g (N-word) with no morals,” Reschke wrote in a text message obtained via screenshot by the Detroit Free Press.

Dantonio emphasized the trials that Reschke has been through in recent years. According to Dantonio, he has “paid the ultimate price” that someone can pay for calling his teammate the N-word: a year without football.