Rocky Top Talking Points: on former former players, former players, and 'Bama smack

As fate would have it, Harrell's freakish injury occurred during the second game of his senior season.

He was distraught initially. His father, Edgar, remembers seeing him in the locker room that night.

"It was like someone reached inside and just tore your heart out," Edgar said. "I hated it so much for him. He'd come back for his senior year wanting to build on what he'd done as a junior. I could see the disappointment in his face."

But what happened later that night told Edgar everything he already knew about his son.

With one arm heavily wrapped and carrying his equipment with his good arm, the 6-foot-4, 300-pound Harrell -- hurting both physically and emotionally -- stuck around to sign every autograph for fans lining up outside the locker room.

"It didn't make a difference to me if he played one quarter after that," Edgar said. "Those are the type of things that make people successful regardless of what they're doing."

Jordan [Howell] played 10 minutes behind Ramar at point guard, and what I'm going to do is see if we can give Chris those minutes. I'll ask Jordan to do what he does well, which is shoot the ball, and be more like Lee Humphrey.

I think it's important for [Lofton's] own development to have him in that role. We'll start the fall thinking along the same lines.