The A.J. Green situation

So what’s going on with A.J. Green? What’s really going on? And how soon will he return to the field?

Short answer to all three questions: We don’t know.

Green could have just been held out as a precautionary measure by Georgia, and this is all nothing to worry about.

Or he could have been held out by Georgia after consulting with the NCAA, and this is a bigger worry than was earlier anticipated.

Georgia acted all August as if it was no big deal: Green said he expected to play, and head coach Mark Richt said at one point early in camp that he didn’t expect any players to have to miss time because of the inquiry.

And then, on Saturday morning, poof, Green isn’t playing.

Could this be more serious than previously thought? There was a key quote from Michael Adams, when I spoke to him just before kickoff on Saturday. Adams said he wasn’t overly concerned, but added:

“What I might think and what the NCAA might think might be two different things.”

And there’s the rub.

I’ve heard four or five different theories on what the NCAA is really looking into with Green. If one of them checks out, I’ll report it. The original agent probe, which ensnared players at Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina, could still be the focus. Green may just be a material witness. But if that was the case, why did Georgia not get a ruling by game time?

One possibility is there’s a huge amount of red tape at the NCAA, which has been busy with a ton of matters: Jeremiah Masoli, the issues at the aforementioned schools, the transition to a new NCAA president.

And it also might not have helped Georgia that until last Monday it didn’t have a full-time athletics director. That could have helped Alabama, with Mal Moore in charge, get its ruling first.

I did speak to one industry source on Saturday who felt Georgia was just playing it safe. The other outward signs point to nothing illicit on the horizon: Green was allowed to hang around the team and be in uniform on Saturday – unlike North Carolina, where Marvin Austin literally had to buy a ticket to attend the game in Atlanta.

Adams said on Saturday that UGA “lawyers are handling it.” And as we know, whenever lawyers get involved, things tend to get strung out.

But Georgia needs to know something soon. It has a fairly big game this week.