If I’m the head coach at a major college football program, the first thing I do is ban my players from using Facebook and Twitter. It’s not fair to the players, no, and obviously it would be a blow to those of us in the bloggin’ business. But fairness doesn’t matter a whole lot, if you ask me, compared to the dangers of having every member of your team essentially holding a 24/7/365 press conference.
Now, if I’d given you one guess as to what Auburn player would prompt me to write the paragraph, I have no doubt you’d have guessed correctly:
Tate notes that the message (and the similarly-themed one preceding it) have since been removed, so I wouldn’t clear out a roster spot just yet … but clearly Rollison is unhappy, and at the very least thinking long and hard about taking off for greener pastures.
Which will be a hell of a shame. Perhaps with Newton aboard playing time wasn’t going to be an option for another couple of seasons, but if Rollison did wait it out, he’d have still been the same tailor-made/glove-fit quarterback taking over what projects to be a totally loaded offense. Maybe it would have been just two years’ worth of starting, but those could have been two phenomenal years.
Those two years are still a possibility, but it’s harder than ever to see them actually coming to pass. The suspension last fall was strike one, and for a head coach who’s as tight with team information as Chizik is, going loose-cannon on Facebook is a sure strike two. As tremendous a prospect as Rollison is, he wasn’t ever guaranteed a starting job–if he can’t even get out of the coaches’ doghouse, how’s he ever going to get on the field?
I’m hoping that Rollison doesn’t transfer. I’m hoping that we do see him taking snaps one day, showing off the blend of athleticism and accuracy that had us all salivating this time last year. I’m hoping that he proves all the fans who said “See, this is why no one wanted him” dead wrong, just as he did everyone who said he’d never qualify.
But to this point, unfortunately Rollison’s mostly only proved those fans right, and it seems unlikely he’s going to have the chance to do otherwise at Auburn.
UPDATE: AuburnSports is reporting that Rollison is gone. Details hyah. (Which, ironically, is not AuburnSports.)
WBE wishes Rollison nothing but the best, but also wishes that best had happened at Auburn.
More spring reps to go around now I guess. Oh well.
I hate to see anybody decide Auburn isn’t the right place for them, but if this is the case, good luck to Rollison; no hard feelings. At the same time, he’s a redshirt freshman competing to lead a potent SEC offense, and he’s already had off-the-field issues. If he feels that bringing in Cam Newton represents a breach of something he was entitled do, I think that’s likely to be a mistake on his part.
I just wish we could have seen him play, even at A-day.
Man, I just found out he is in my American Government class too
Harrison, that’s a bummer.
Fun fact: Robert Johnson was on the roll for one of my sections of freshman comp when I was GTAing at AU, but was busy declaring for the draft at the exact same moment he was supposed to be in my first class of the semester.
my muse passes on. oh well.
Oh, well. Good luck to him. Plus, I don’t recall any AU receivers referring to him as a ‘beast’.
This MUST have more to do with the dog house than the depth chart.