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Boubacar Cissoko, a promising young cornerback from Detroit Cass Tech High, was removed from the Michigan Football Team for ‘unspecified violation of team rules’, Coach Rich Rodriguez announced on Tuesday. Cissoko had been suspended from playing with the team on Saturday for similar reasons in weeks previous, but had worked himself back onto the playing field through meeting daily objectives and saw time during Michigan’s loss against Penn State on Saturday. Apparently, the positive momentum of his efforts was short lived.

Speculation by those surrounding and reporting on the team seems to indicate a variety of possible issues, most assuming a direct violation of the same things that he had been working on in recent weeks being the main undoing. But others, including Cissoko’s high school coach, shed a bit different light on the subject.

A number of sources claim that Cissoko had a poor work ethic and was incompatible as a teammate. Others focus instead on the fact that he was consistently struggling to get to class and doing well enough once there. What’s clear, given his previous publicized issues (shouting at a police officer who pulled him over, for example) is that Cissoko simply needs to get his head on straight before he completely throws away the opportunity that so many wish they had.

There’s no shortage of stories that sound like this: Talented high school sports star goes to play at college but fails to manage all that surrounds him and take advantage of his gifts and ends up disappearing from sight. It’s unbelievably sad, I think, to hear this story over and over again.

Boubacar, if you’re out there or reading this, please understand I am not angry about anything you did, nor do I feel the need to bash you at your time of difficulty like some others do. I’m just disappointed that things didn’t turn out differently and especially at a school/progam with as many available resources as Michigan has to offer to counter the incredible demands of FBS college football. I hope you find your way and are able to still eventually put your strong athletic talents to use for another program.

I hope to see Boubacar find a smaller program away from all the BCS madness so he can focus on gettting stronger mentally and educationally while still letting his physical tools just open the doors he needs to keep progressing. It’s pretty clear, if ge can his head straight, MAC schools can serve as ample proving grounds for the NFL. Who knows, maybe hindsight will prove that to be the kind of route he should have originally taken.