Our Honor Defend

I just heard on ESPN’s 6pm ET/5pm CT that the rumours regarding Ryan Perrilloux being in it deep with LSU’s coaching staff is true. Apparently, Les Miles has suspended Perrilloux indefinitely for violating team rules.

As far as I know, these guys here broke the story, or at least started musing about what was going on. What followed has, basically, corroborated what they were reporting. Some key points from what these guys were saying as this was still in rumour stage:

Due to an ongoing dispute between Perrilloux’s mother and LSU — potentially stemming from Ryan’s mother trying to shake down the school — the projected starting quarterback has cleaned out his locker and left the team. Perrilloux reportedly missed a team meeting this week, but his absence is clouded by reports that Perrilloux was attending his father’s funeral.

Apparently Perrilloux and the coaching staff have an understanding about certain things that QB must do to stay in LSU’s good graces. This all stems from his previous track record. Allegedly broke this agreement 2-3 times in the last two weeks and was threatened with suspension or outright suspended from the team. It is believed that one of the issues was class attendance, missing a team appointment and the other was related to him going somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. So… the coaches met with Perrilloux and the suspension talk came up. This conversation apparently led to Perrilloux’s mother threatening to pull the QB off the team. Very shortly thereafter, Perrilloux’s father passed away and the QB has not been with the team on campus since then.

These guys are reporting more than what the major news outlets are reporting, basically confirming the original rumours: missing team events, not showing up to class, violating unwritten agreements following Perrilloux’s earlier antics and, therefore, suspension.

There’s no real schadenfreude here, per se, it’s just this is a painfully slow time of the CFB year and this gives us something to post. Actually, slight dig, credit Miles for taking initiative here, but I couldn’t help remind myself of the organizational anarchy he had operating at Okie State. Such an SOP != having players with pernicious habits, of course, but I do think they correlate in important ways, centered around the idea that you should recruit a kid’s off-the-field performance every bit as much as you should recruit him for his on-the-field performance. Organizational philosophy here matters. You bring in off-the-field dross and this is what follows.

Of course, I really don’t know how he runs his show at LSU, and taking initiative with your certain star QB is laudable, but the thought of such an organizational philosophy was precisely why I wanted him at Michigan. How Michigan’s elites respond to someone with such a salty mouth and conceptual anarchy on player management at what’s basically an Ivy League school in Michigan had to make for great TV. But I digress.

Back to the discussion at hand. Presuming Perrilloux misses the season, how boned is LSU’s football team in 2008? That was an all-senior team in 2007, that’s now missing key defensive players, a key defensive coordinator, and is now wafer thin¹ at QB. Combine that with Alabama having a mini-renaissance, Auburn with a hotshot new offensive philosophy, LSU having to go on the road to Florida and Auburn and adding Georgia to the schedule. Ouchies.

1. say it as it’s said in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life: Wah-fer thin [↩]