SLIPPERY ROCK — Ryan Dutton was coming off a dynamic sophomore football season where he was a force on defense.

But he decided to hang up the cleats and instead focus on basketball.

“I felt as if I was going to be a better basketball player,” Dutton said. “It didn’t turn out to be the case.”

Dutton left the football field to focus solely on hoops. He played year round, but after a 1-21 season as a junior, he started to have doubts about his plan.

“We won one game last season and I didn’t make as much an impact as I should have for giving up a year of football,” Dutton said.

It’s not that the 6-foot-5 swing player had a bad season. He averaged a team-high 15.6 points and 11.4 rebounds per game. But as the losing mounted, so did his frustration.

He spent this summer working out with the football team, but again decided perhaps the sport wasn’t for him.

Three games into the football season, Dutton had another change of heart and put the helmet and pads on again.

“I grew up with those kids, played in seventh-, eighth-, ninth and 10th-grade with those kids,” Dutton said. “When they started 0-3, I didn’t want to see them lose like that. I didn’t want to see them go through three coaches in three years alone. I wanted to make a difference again.”

Dutton did, but it took some time for him to get there, including a game on the junior varsity against Hickory.

“He was willing to do it,” said Slippery Rock football coach Larry Wendereusz. “He understood he needed the time to get back into football shape and he played very well. The next Friday, he played against Mercer.”

Dutton made an immediate impact on a defense that had struggled in the first three games.

Dutton, who played outside linebacker and defensive end, ended up with 45 tackles, two sacks and three forced fumbles.

In an upset playoff win against Mercyhurst Prep, the defense had its best game of the season, shutting out the Lakers.

Dutton was in the middle of it.

“He can run, he has good size, he reads well — he sees it and go gets it,” Wendereusz said. “He’s a tremendous football player. What he did for us was we were able to go to a three-man-front easier without changing personnel. That allowed us to put more speed on the field.”

Dutton, though, will give up football again.

He is being recruited by several Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference schools for basketball. He also pondered playing football, but decided against it for personal reasons.

“I worry about injury, especially head injuries,” Dutton said. “When you go to college and play college football, everyone was ‘that guy’ on their high school teams. My grandfather told me a quote: ‘Acceleration times mass equals force.’ When 300-pound men are running at you at 15 mile per hour, that’s a lot of force coming at you.”

So, as he heads into his senior season with a Slippery Rock team looking to avenge its one-win season from a year ago, Dutton has double-downed on basketball.

He spent some time this summer playing on a traveling team coached by Butler girls basketball coach Joe Lewandowski and went up against players in the post who were touching 7-foot.

And held his own.

“It really made me see what it takes to make your teammates better around you,” Dutton said. “Last year I kind of did what I wanted and it wasn’t good enough. There’s a different energy level in practice this year. A team that makes the playoffs and is a high-caliber team has to have that kind of energy all the time. A lot of guys have put in a lot of work.”