“Personal reasons” prompted Ale Kaho to transfer from Washington, with the linebacker ultimately landing at Alabama in August of last year. A handful of months later, unspecified further “issues” have cropped up yet again.
From al.com:Sophomore Ale Kaho wasn’t at the Crimson Tide’s practice on Friday and it’s unclear when or if he’ll be [returning] to practice with the team.
“He’s got some issues that he’s dealing with,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “We’re trying to be supportive of him every way that we can. I think that we’ll just continue to try to help him every way that we can. I don’t know if at some point in time he’ll be ready to come back and play football or not.
Kaho led the Crimson Tide in special teams tackles in the run to the national championship game last season, and has been expected to compete for a starting job at inside linebacker.
A four-star member of Washington’s 2018 recruiting class, Kaho was rated as the No. 7 inside linebacker in the country, the No. 4 player at any position in the state of Nevada; and the No. 133 player overall on 247Sports.com‘s composite board. Only one defensive player in the Huskies’ 14th-ranked class this year was rated higher than Kaho — defensive tackle Tuli Letuligasenoa.
Kaho, a December 2017 signee who was one of the crown jewels of Chris Petersen‘s third class at UW, didn’t take part in spring practice or any other offseason program last year because he still had high school classwork to complete. On top of that, an aunt and uncle passed away in July, while his parents were also going through a divorce. Combine all of that and Kaho asked UW for a release from his scholarship in early August of last year.
It was thought that Kaho would move closer to his hometown of Reno, Nev., because of all of the tumult in his life, although the exact opposite happened. Petersen granted Kaho a release from his scholarship, citing unspecified “personal reasons” for the move.
Because Kaho never enrolled in classes at UW, he was eligible to play for Alabama in 2018.