The speculation is now over. B.J. Coleman has decided to pursue playing time elsewhere rather than risk being a backup and losing another year of college playing time. With the Coaching Chimera obviously intent on bringing in their own hand-picked player, the recent addition of Rozier to fill in the 2-year gap, and the extensive time Crompton had with the first-team players during the spring practices, Coleman must have read the handwriting on the wall and figured that Kiffin did not see him as a substantial part of the offense.
It's going to be very easy to get bent out of shape on this one. For the Crompton haters out there, this must surely come as the worst news of the Kiffin era. At this point, we have to assume that Crompton is the starter until somebody else takes it from him, and we're not sure that the staff is very interested in finding that person within the current options: Stephens has a chance to prove himself when his wrist is 100%, but Rozier surely won't have enough of a chance to prove he knows the offense and beat out Crompton within the span of fall practice. While I didn't really expect the announcement to come in this form, it really does sound like I was right when I suggested that you prepare for Crompton to be the man.
Brace yourselves for this, also: get ready for the unbelievable storm of fury and outrage that will come from people who hate Crompton. I'm not begrudging the opinion; everybody has one and mine tends to be based on being nonconfrontational about things, so I'm hardly one to complain. But Crompton is our guy now, and there's really nothing to be gained by dwelling in the hate. If you think that Crompton doesn't learn well enough for the game, at least you know that Kiffin's offense is not nearly as cerebral as Clawson's was; the biggest criticism laid against Crompton has to be mitigated at least somewhat by that fact.
One last word about the matter (for now): This will undoubedtly make UT an extremely tempting location for a QB in next year's class. The gap between Stephens and the '10 guy will be filled only by Rozier, a baseball convert who was never highly rated in the first place. So long as we're not bringing in a clone of Jimmy Clausen, that should bode well.
I'll have more to say later once I get my thoughts and analysis complete. There's a lot to consider.