It was the summer of 2012 and Silas Redd tried all he could not to pay attention to Twitter. Hateful message after hateful message swarmed his timeline as he had just made a difficult decision that sent him across the country at just 20 years old.

Death threats: “I'm issuing a standing RIP for Silas Redd. He'll be dead by the end of the season,” one user ensured.

Injury wishes: “Silas Redd should probably break his neck next year #trader.” Another account wished he dropped a weightlifting bar on his throat.

The running back’s Twitter handle, @MomentOfSilas25, fell silent after he deleted it.

“It was incredible the amount of hate that's out there for a person,” Redd said.

Silas Redd can kill himself. — Christian Walston (@CWalston108) August 31, 2012

It was all because Redd decided Penn State wasn't the place for him following the July 2012 sanctions that took away some scholarships and the football program's chances of postseason play for the next four years, among other penalties.

On homecoming weekend more than two years after he moved to Los Angeles to join Lane Kiffin and USC, Redd isn’t sure he can return to the place he called home once before.

Redd regrets nothing. He can't live his life with them.

Instead, he stands by every second of that summer including those he spent in Bill O'Brien's office when he delivered the news to Penn State's then-head coach that he wouldn't be taking any more snaps in a Penn State uniform.

He prided himself on doing the meeting in-person. He didn't want to do it over the phone. He didn't want to do it over email. Whether or not O'Brien and the athletic director at the time, Dave Joyner, agreed with him, he just wanted them to respect his decision.

“Say what you want about it, but I didn't disrespect anyone,” Redd said. “People can hate me after two years, but it doesn't really matter because I know I treated the people I needed to treat with respect.”

To get to O'Brien's office and to even fathom the word “transfer” was not an easy thing for Redd.

He committed to Penn State on May 3 of his junior year of high school because he couldn't wait to play in Beaver Stadium. The Norwalk, Connecticut native turned down offers from Michigan, Stanford and Oregon. It was his dream as a kid to play at Penn State for coach Joe Paterno and the feeling to commit to the university was incredible for him.

The dream was all it was hyped up to be for the first two years. Redd played in all but one game in his true freshman year as he backed up Penn State's all-time career rushing leader, Evan Royster. He gained 461 yards on 77 carries in 2010 before taking over the starting role.

It was in that year when Redd had his favorite Penn State memory, which he still holds close to his heart. On November 6, 2010, the Nittany Lions were trailing 21-7 at halftime to Northwestern with Paterno sitting at 399 career wins. Paterno was an incredible influence on Redd and he just wanted to help get the coach another historic win.

Penn State churned out 28 second-half points behind Redd’s 134 rushing yards on the game. He averaged almost 12 yards per carry to secure the 400th win for the coach he idolized so much.

In 2011, Redd picked up 1,241 yards in a stellar sophomore season. The future was bright with two full years of eligibility left.

@MomentOfSilas25 NFL stock goes way up if u stay. Any smart organization takes a great &loyal team player over a great player#Truth #WeAre!! — Cael Sanderson (@caelsanderson) July 28, 2012

But on July 23, 2012, the future dimmed immensely. The sanctions hit and one week later, Redd was gone.

The last night he spent in State College with his close teammates like Stephen Obeng-Agyapong, Malcolm Willis and his roommates Jordan Hill and Justin Brown was an emotional one for Redd. He had a tearful goodbye to Penn State.

“I definitely didn't want to see him at USC just because of how I feel about Penn State, but when it's one of your good friends and you feel like he's a little brother, you want to see him succeed,” Hill said.

It was an especially hard time for Hill because, not only did he lose a roommate in Redd, but he also lost one in Justin Brown when the wide receiver also transferred just days after Redd, to Oklahoma.

Hill insists there were no hard feelings between Redd, Brown and the team after they left. Hill even chose Brown to be in his upcoming wedding, so the relationships there were certainly not strained.

“If it's a real brotherhood and a real friendship, that's just not how it goes,” Hill said. “Some guys have to make tough decisions and that's really what they have to do.”

If only the Twitter users were as forgiving as the Penn State team, the transfer would have been easy for Redd. But that wasn't the case.

Redd leaned on his former Penn State teammates after his decision. He sent them some of the nasty messages he was getting.

"Bitch" and "asshole" were just a few of the choice words people peppered in between wishes for his career to end with a multitude of leg injuries.

The teammates had his back and that was all that mattered to him.

But it wasn't the Penn State Redd remembered. He remembered the Penn State where 107,000 screamed his name as he led the Nittany Lions over Northwestern. He remembered the Penn State where he heard, “Silas Redd, the ball carrier,” after every one of his Beaver Stadium rushes.

It was his nightmare that the school he idolized as a child had grown to loathe him.

“For people not to know the inner workings of my situation and some of the things that were going on behind the scenes, I didn't comprehend how that could turn into such hate,” Redd said.

Hope Silas Redd blows his knee out first play #GoodbyeSilas #scrub — Evan Fink (@evanfink32) July 31, 2012

He hasn't been back to the university since he parted ways with it in 2012 and he doesn't know if he will ever come back with all that has been said and done.

Redd expressed interest in coming back, but he was reserved on the idea coming to fruition. He just doesn't know if it is a good idea.

“I try to avoid situations where things could get out of hand,” Redd said.

One of those situations he mentioned was the thought of encountering a drunk person in downtown State College where things had the potential to escalate.

It's not a comfortable environment for Redd and even though he wants to come back, he almost spoke as if it was an unattainable privilege. It's not about setting foot on the field again for him as a special guest of the program. It's just about wanting to be back in the stadium where he started his collegiate career just to watch a game. That day has to wait until Redd can bring himself to come back.

He may have some hope though because he did rejoin Twitter with a new handle halfway through his first year at USC. He said he still gets hate on the social media site on a day-to-day basis, but it is easier now since he's not as invested in Penn State as he was back then.

It's still hard for Redd to forget the words he heard and it may be harder to ignore because those career-ending leg injuries people wished on him almost came true during his time at USC.

Once Redd got to the West Coast, he “got hurt and stayed hurt.”

It was an ankle injury and back spasms in his junior year, but he suffered a more serious knee injury in the spring and fall of his senior campaign. Collegiate athletes’ final years are so critical because it's their last chance to prove they can compete at the highest level and it wasn't a chance Redd saw at USC.

“I couldn't get back to 2011 Silas," Redd said. "It just never happened."

He knew no team wanted to take a risk and draft a player with not-so healthy knees and he was right. He wasn't healthy at the NFL Combine and got caught up in the bright lights and seeing his competitors running the 40-yard dash.

“I figured I could at least run straight,” Redd said. “I jumped already, I might as well try and run my 40 and it didn't turn out too good for me.”

Redd went undrafted, which led many to speculate what would have happened to his career if he stayed at Penn State. The reality is it is impossible to predict if he would have stayed healthy at Penn State and saw more of that 2011 Silas he so desired than he did at USC.

But in what seemed to be his first in a couple years, he caught a break and the Washington Redskins brought him in during the preseason to see what he could do. What he did was reminiscent of 2011 Silas. He picked up 157 yards in four games and he earned his way onto the squad.

In too-perfect irony, Redd's addition to the Redskins came at the expense of his former Penn State teammate Evan Royster. The “sweet” half of bittersweet wasn't present for Redd because he learned so much from Royster in his freshman year and spent so much time with him during Organized Team Activities during the summer with Washington.

It was an opportunity for him, though, and he already has taken advantage of it. He found the end zone in Week 2 in just his second NFL game when he broke off a 14-yard score against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Whether or not he stayed at Penn State and was a draft pick or left for USC and was undrafted, it doesn't matter to him. All he cares about is that he made a team and he's making an impact.

So as far as those fans that took to Twitter and wished him ill-will, Redd has a simple message.

“Thanks for the motivation,” Redd said.