National analyst on LeMay: 'It'll be all right'

Christian LeMay, the former Butler quarterback, won't play high school football this season, but Rivals national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell doesn't think it'll hurt him too much.

LeMay violated a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' code of conduct in June and was given a 40-day out of school suspension. The suspension would've kept him off the field until November, and LeMay's father said the alternative CMS school LeMay would've had to attend didn't offer the credits he needed to graduate in January.

So if LeMay had served the suspension, he could not have have graduated until June.

Farrell said he hadn't heard of a situation quite like this.

"There have been situations where kids have had to miss their senior year due to academic ineligibility or injury," Farrell said, "but this is the first time for a quarterback, especially such a highly regarded quarterback, that I've heard of where it had nothing to do with academics or injury or assault. It was a mistake the kid made in judgment. I don't think this will affect his recruitment."

Farrell said if Georgia was going to change course with LeMay, it would've done so by now.

"Georgia has already made a commitment and had it been something worse ... if this was drugs or any sort of transgression more serious, I think they would drop him in a second," Farrell said. "But because it was a situation where it was bad judgment but not ... technically anything illegal - it was a stupid, stupid mistake on the kid's part - I don't think they'll punish him for that."

Farrell said he would not expect the time away from the game to hurt LeMay too much. By the time LeMay enrolls in college, he will not have played in a game in more than a year.

"You want to be out there in live action, reading defenses and taking hits," Farrell said, "and for him to go a full year without that will slow him down, but he's polished enough and smart enough where I think it'll be all right."

-- Langston Wertz Jr.