Fall Practice Starts

It's now officially pre-season. Huzzah! Some new:

• Ryan Perilloux is back, baby! He's done everything asked of him during his suspension. He went to summer school and did well. He did community service work. He stayed out of trouble. He continued working apart from the team.
• True freshman Chad Jones will report to practice on Friday. He has not signed with the Astros and reports that the Astros have not really been trying to sign him. I'm not holding my breath on him being with the team until the August 15 deadline comes and goes, but this is encouraging news.

• Offensive guard/center Steven Singleton (pictured) has reportedly left the team. He was a massive redshirt freshman who was relatively far down the depth chart.

I have said before and I will say again that it is not such a bad thing when players leave the team, if those players are not anticipated to contribute. Singleton was a promising player, but it would have been at least a couple years before he was a contributor, if ever, and a bunch of solid players are coming up behind him at his position.

When a player leaves the organization, it clears a spot for a new recruit, who may end up being better than the one who left. The 85/25 rule basically requires players to leave if coaches want to keep signing 25-man classes. You can only have 85 scholarships at a time, but you can add 25 in any given year. If everyone stays 4 years, and some stay 5 years, you'll quickly lock yourself out of recruiting entirely.

Of course, too much attrition or attrition of the wrong people is a very bad thing. Losing quality players who you were counting on to contribute is a bad thing. It doesn't do a lot of good to sign a really good class only to have most of them leave because they kept getting arrested. But, a coach does his job realizing that SOME people are going to leave.

Anyway, it is now less than 4 weeks until the first game of the season, and I can't wait.