Only Pitt, right? Come on, surely I wasn't the only one to have that thought today.
If you haven't been on Twitter lately, the Todd Thomas saga took some awfully strange twists today. First, Mike White dropped this bombshell:
As expected, the news took off from there that Toddy had found his way back into the program.
That's where things started to go awry, though. Head coach Paul Chryst, who likes more than nothing to keep things close to the vest, reacted and insisted that no decision had been made:
Well, then.
What's lost in translation is what the high school coach actually said to White. Sadly, White's post on the matter doesn't contain any quotes and since he hasn't expanded on Twitter, we don't have much to go on. Jerry DiPaola at the Trib did, however, provide some more quotes on what went down from the high school coach:
"Todd let his emotions get the best of him," said Biega, who coached Thomas in high school. "He wants to come back. He is excited to be part of the Pitt program. Now, the ball is in coach (Paul) Chryst's court." A source told the Tribune-Review that Chryst has not ruled out allowing Thomas to return. Chryst had no comment Thursday after practice, the second Thomas missed this week.
None of this is to kill White, obviously. Regarding the difference in information, the three most likely scenarios are:
1. The high school coach accurately told White that Thomas was coming back to Pitt and Paul Chryst, possibly perturbed by him speaking out, pretty much decided he'd announce this when he felt like it
2. The high school coach incorrectly stated to White that Thomas was coming back to Pitt and Chryst had never made a final decision
3. There was some miscommunication between the two about if Thomas was actually allowed back at Pitt or if he just wanted to come back
Who knows, maybe the coach even got some misinformation from Thomas. Either way, the result was a lot of egg meeting faces today.
The weird thing, of course, is that if things really were worked out, it's strange that Thomas wasn't at practice.
Nobody asked me (nor should they ... let's get real), but my hope is that it results in Thomas coming back. This isn't, by any indication, a kid that got into trouble or that's been a problem child. Lest we forget, he's been a pretty good sport of things.
Could be wrong on this, but I don't ever remember hearing him complain about the indecisiveness even though he was a big-time recruit. This doesn't appear to be the type of thing that should keep him from playing at Pitt again. As his high school football coach said yesterday,
it seemed like a knee-jerk reaction.
I will say that for Thomas to make that decision with the team on the brink of its season is flat out wrong. Discipline should be in order and Thomas should have to work his way back. But this isn't Tra'Von Chapman and it doesn't even appear to be Rushel Shell. It was a poorly-made decision probably based on an even poorer thought process. Still, I'd have a hard time booting him from the team is the extent of the problem is him sulking after a practice.
We shall see.
This article was originally published at http://cardiachill.com (an SB Nation blog). If you are interested in sharing your website's content with SCACCHoops.com, Contact Us.
