Over the weekend, Rich Rodriguez announced that Tra’Mayne Bondurant had been dismissed from his Arizona football team.
A couple of days later, it appears the talented and experienced defensive back is climbing his way out of Rodriguez’s doghouse and back into the coach’s good graces.
According to Tucson.com, the senior safety was back at practice with the Wildcats. He wasn’t, though, practicing with his teammates.
Rodriguez went on to explain the development, which is not exactly unexpected as the coach left the door slightly ajar for a return.
“He has a certain number of things to do,” Rodriguez said. “And if he does that, he’ll come back. If he doesn’t, he won’t. He reached out to me and we had a couple of conversations. I told him if he wants to play football for Arizona, this is what he’s supposed to do. Now, he has to do a little more than he had to do before because he took a day off. So that’s what it is.
“I don’t know how long it will be, a few days, a week, a couple of weeks, only the head ball coach is going to determine that.”
The initial dismissal came after Bondurant, the website wrote, “failed to complete some punishment that had been handed his way after some discipline issues.”
Bondurant’s return would be a boon for UA’s secondary.
Last season, Bondurant led the Wildcats with four interceptions. He returned two of those picks for touchdowns, one of 15 players to pull off that feat in 2013 (Washington State’s Damante Horton returned three of his five interceptions for scores).