<span style="font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">CECIL SUNDAY: Dismissing players not a job taken lightly</span></span> <font size="2">
By Cecil Hurt
Sports Editor
There are still 17 weeks to go before the college football season officially begins. But it's possible that the championship race in the Southeastern Conference West Division - maybe the entire SEC - heck, maybe the whole BCS - changed last week.
That's because the LSU chapter in the saga of wayward quarterback Ryan Perrilloux finally came to the conclusion that many people predicted. After a long series of incidents and transgressions, Perrilloux finally found the breaking point in Coach Les Miles' seemingly boundless patience and was dismissed from the Tiger team.
It would be easy to pontificate about the off-the-field implications of the perils of Perrilloux, but the fact is that many college campuses have athletes with disciplinary problems. <span style="color: darkred;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Alabama has had its share in recent months. The Tide currently has a potential key contributor, linebacker Prince Hall, who sat out the spring in the same sort of probationary period as Perrilloux served at LSU. Hall may work his way back on to the Crimson Tide team, or he may find himself, as Perrilloux has, with a bus ticket out of town. Time will tell.</span></span>
It's part of intercollegiate athletics, even for successful programs. Two key contributors to Tennessee's SEC men's basketball championship were also canned this week. Fans who smugly think that misbehavior will never affect their team will find the wolf at their door sooner or later.
Coaches will always have to face the choice of whether certain players' athletic ability makes them worth the trouble they create. Some players are so athletically gifted that coaches are willing to bet that their behavior can be changed, all the way up to the professional level. See Randy Moss. See Darren McFadden. Others aren't. See the University of Alabama's NFL Draft Class of 2008. Perrilloux fit into the "worth a lot of trouble" category. Just watch the tape of last year's SEC championship game, when he won Most Valuable Player honors while filling in for Matt Flynn. But as good as Perrilloux was, he was ultimately more trouble than he was worth
No one needs to be told how important it is to have a legitimate big-time quarterback in college football. It's why Georgia (with Matthew Stafford) is a preseason BCS championship choice. It's why Florida (with Tim Tebow) thinks it can beat Georgia to the punch. It's why Arkansas fans can't wait for Ryan Mallett to get eligible. It's why LSU fans can't wait for Texas prep phenom Robert Sheperd to get on campus next year. <span style="color: darkred;">It's why Alabaqma fans were waiting breathlessly on A. J. McCarron's decision on Saturday night.</span>
It's why Perrilloux wasn't dismissed lightly. Nonetheless, he was dismissed..
The immediate concern: what will it mean to LSU - and the SEC West - on the football field?
There is no exact way to know. The two names to note at LSU - and I'll admit, I had to look them up on Saturday - are redshirt freshman Jarrett Lee and junior Andrew Hatch, a transfer from Harvard. Neither has played a snap of SEC football, obviously, and neither has the explosive athletic ability of Perrilloux. (Few do.) The eventual job-winner will be surrounded by plenty of talent, but it will change the offensive dynamic at LSU.
There is a smattering of quarterback experience around the division, but the full roster of quarterbacks is a mixed bag. Casey Dick at Arkansas started all 13 games last year without distinguish himself. He returns this year with Bobby Petrino as a new coach and neither McFadden nor Felix Jones in the backfield behind him. (Another not-unexpected event that passed more quietly than the Perrilloux suspension last week was the NCAA decision that Michigan trasfer Ryan Mallette would not be immediately eligible at Arkansas,)
Kodi Burns has some experience at Auburn, if he can hold off junior college transfer Chris Todd. Ole Miss has Texas transfer Jevan Snead as its presumptive quarterback and Houston Nutt is excited about Snead's potential. (To be fair, there isn't much that doesn't excite Houston Nutt.) Wesley Carroll started nine games for Mississippi State last year.
Then there is John Parker Wilson. The Alabama senior has more career starts than any other quarterback in the decision. It may (or may not) be worth mentioning that the last two times that Alabama has had a senior starting quarterback - Tyler Watts in 2002 and Brodie Croyle in 2005 - the Crimson Tide has had a 10-win season. The key phrase - and one which Nick Saban has used repeatedly in the spring - is for Wilson to make "better business decisions" on the field.
Ryan Perrilloux has already made one too many bad business decisions off the field. There is no way to know if that will knock LSU out of the championship business next December - but it will make the Bengal Tigers into a different sort of offensive team, for sure.</font>
