While Alabama will likely enter the 2010 season ranked at the top of the polls that count, attrition on the defensive side of the ball -- eight starters need replaced -- has given some members of the media pause when it comes to projecting just how the defending national champions will fare this year.
Unfortunately for the Tide, that side of the ball has taken yet another hit.
Gentry Estes of the Mobile Press-Register reports this afternoon that safety Rod Woodson is no longer a member of the Alabama football program.
No specific reason for the departure was given, and all head coach Nick Saban would allow is that it was “mutually agreed it would be better for him to continue his career somewhere else.” Saban did heavily intimate that there were some deep issues -- academics? -- in play with this situation, saying that it’s “all about accountability; when you don ‘t have one who wasn’t accountable, I don’t see that as a problem.”
As noted by Estes, this is a fairly significant loss for the Tide as Woodson, who played little as a true freshman in 2009, was expected to challenge for a starting job in the secondary.