Academics Sack Top UW Linebacker, Five Recruits for 2008

First it was an unusual injury, a broken arm suffered during an arm wrestling competition shortly after spring football. Now, grades appear to have taken down the top returning tackler for UW. Per Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, linebacker E.J. Savannah is no longer on the Husky football roster.

Tyrone Willingham broke the news today at his fall opening press conference. Willingham stayed in his usual character, offering very little details other than to say Savannah is academically ineligible. If and when he gets things straightened out, he will be able to return to the football program. That's pretty much it.

But that wasn't the only bad news on Montlake. Some of UW's key incoming freshmen will be missing from the team. Touted defensive line prospects Craig Noble and Senio Kelemete didn't make it for this fall. Noble and Kelemete were four-star recruits, and looked upon as having a real shot to get into the defensive line rotation. QB Dominique Blackman, RB Demetrius Bronson, and safety Vince Taylor, all of the three-star variety, also failed to qualify.


The most likely scenario is that these recruits will delay their enrollment until January of 2009, so all is not lost. WR's Devin Aguilar and Anthony Boyles, two touted recruits from 2007 who failed to qualify last year, still enrolled in January, participated in spring practice and are ready to go this fall. But these losses make it a total of five players out of the 26 Willingham signed for the 2008 class that will not be with the team this season.

For a program hoping to get off to a fast start, the recruits not qualifying isn't that big of a deal. Sure it hurts the depth, and UW isn't especially deep these days. Their impact would probably be minimal in the early stages of the season anyway, outside of some plays here or there or some special-teams action. But losing Savannah is about the worst possible news UW could roll out today. Savannah is on virtually all the pre-season Pac-10 teams as an outside linebacker. At 111 tackles last season, he was the number-three returning tackler in the entire conference. The UW defense is already a work-in-progress, as former NFL coordinator Ed Donatell signed on to turn around a young, rebuilding unit in need of a change. This is the same defense that was the worst in school history after surrendering 446 yards per game in 2007. But as everyone knows, it's not just the schemes that win games, it's the material you have on the field that is just as important. Losing a tackling machine like Savannah is a huge blow for UW's hopes of turning around the 2008 defense.