Rumor Central — J.J. M.I.A?

First phone call this morning.

“Somebody started a rumor that J.J. Di Luigi hasn’t come back to school and is still home in California, although school has started. Is he coming back to BYU?”

Well, yes.

It took most of the day to track down the rumor, the basis thereof and I don’t know who started it on one of the Internet sites…

But as of 4:10 p.m., J.J. was lifting weights in the Student Athlete Building, just down from the locker room.

J.J. redshirted this past year after breaking his foot in the summer stepping on a newspaper in his driveway in Canyon Country, Calif.

He then broke it again in the first series of plays in BYU’s initial scrimmage of fall, back in August. He had surgery, had a pin placed in the foot and rehabbed it all year long.

DiLuigi was part of the California Bowl champions at Canyon High School last year where he rushed for 2,159 yards on 266 carries.

He has a lot of potential in BYU’s backfield as freshman of the year Harvey Unga could get more and more of his touches as a slot back in many formations.

Signing off, Rumor Central.

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If you are wondering why BYU hasn’t made an annoucement about the new team on its football schedule, the one replacing Nevada…

Folks on campus said it would be today (Friday). Our Jeff Call, who covered the Hill D-coordinator story Thursday came out of the meeting believing an annoucement would be today. The Tribune printed on D2 today, there would be a revelation of the schedule today. It is 4:50 p.m. and there has been no announcement.

My guess, and this is only a guess, is this announcement will be made tonight after 7 p.m. when radio talk shows in Utah go off the air and don’t return for their regular diet until Monday morning early drive time.

A release will probably come out about 8 p.m. or so and no offices or officials will available. There will be a quote from a coach or an athletic department officials and life goes on.

This makes sense. If it is a Division IAA team, and many believe it will be, the discussion is limited to chatter over the Internet for a few days and nobody gets beat up during a basketball weekend. Of course, we’d all write about it, comment on it and the talking heads would devote another day to the news at another time. But not when 20 recruits are in town.

Just a wild guess. Just funn’in with my friends on the talk shows. Carry on….