Player Yo-Yo

Josh Perkins and Willis Wilson were on the Husky Football roster. Then they weren’t. Now they’re back on it. Many figured that when they were initially dismissed that it may have just been a big time college program doing what big time college programs have to do to reach the upper echelon of competitiveness in terms of player turnover. With a big recruiting class coming in and not a lot of seniors on the roster, players are going to have to move on in one way or another.

Perkins and Wilson didn’t really make sense in that respect though. For one, Wilson isn’t occupying a scholarship as a walk-on, so dismissing him wouldn’t have helped the team from a numbers standpoint. He’s also getting reps in practice due to the injury to Deontae Cooper and the lack of depth at the RB position, so he’s a player who definitely has value for this team.

Perkins, also, is a player who has value in that he’s transitioning from WR to more of a hybrid WR/TE player. He may not get a ton of playing time this season, but down the road the Huskies may run into a problem at the TE position with all 3 true TE’s being sophomores (and, as of yet, 0 TE commits in the 2013 class). Perkins may be relied upon to bridge that gap.

That the players were reinstated and the matter is being dealt with “internally” suggests perhaps a few things. One, this might have been a warning shot from coach Steve Sarkisian about behavior that will not be tolerated. Whatever happened clearly was not something that the coaching staff would ever like to see, and maybe the plan all along was to give Wilson and Perkins a bit of a scare, while at the same time sending a message to the other players on the roster. Or perhaps the leaders of the team, guys like Drew Schaefer, Keith Price and Desmond Trufant, met with the coaches and came to an agreement on bringing them back. This scenario would suggest a healthy amount of trust in the older players, and a good relationship between the leaders and the coaches: both very good things.

Whatever the reason, don’t be too happy for Perkins and Wilson: having things “taken care of internally” means that those two guys probably had one of the most grueling workouts of their lives pretty recently. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.