I am sorry. Asking an undersized 3 star kid to take a greyshirt two days before national signing day is foul. Yes, he landed in a good situation, but Bobby Petrino had nothing whatsoever to do with that. Lots of other coaches try to help kids that they drop find another spot (with a team that is not in their conference or on their schedule but still) and Petrino did not. Also, some kids who get dropped like this do wind up at an FCS school or a JUCO.
Great ... Colburn is starting for a 4-0 Wake Forest team (that will probably end up 6-6). Big deal. Wake Forest stunk last year and will likely stink next year because that program is almost never able to get a quality QB and a quality OL together at the same time. The kid probably could have gone to a program that assembles much better talent and winning tradition so he would have had a better shot at a good college experience instead of seeing a .500 record at 3.9 yards per carry at quite possibly the lowest profile P5 school (it really is between Wake Forest, Iowa State and Kansas) being the high water mark of his college experience. And yes, playing in a big time program only really matters if you play for a decent program in that conference. Playing on a losing team before tiny crowds and never getting on TV (unless ACC network games count) isn't big time football. Boise, BYU and Houston are much closer to actual big time football than Wake Forest will ever be.
You want a kid to redshirt? Tell him that when you offer him, or at least a few months before signing day. Not 2 days before signing day because a couple of DBs leave early for the NFL and you had higher rated players than you expected at the same position.
Colburn's situation worked out OK. Not great or even good, just OK. Had Wake Forest not had room, Colburn's only FBS option would have been Georgia Southern. Really football-wise Georgia Southern versus Wake Forest is a wash: Colburn would have certainly put up better stats and won a lot more games at Georgia Southern, who does have some history of putting RBs in the NFL. In fact, I remember when Georgia Southern and Wake Forest played a series with each other back when Georgia Southern was an FCS school, and Georgia Southern beat Wake Forest in back to back years, one of the things that got Wake Forest's coach at the time fired!
The only thing that makes Wake Forest a better situation is that they offer a much better education with significantly better life after football opportunities than Georgia Southern. So since 180 lb. RBs with average speed tend not to have a long shelf life in the NFL, maybe this incident will wind up in Colburn's favor if he graduates in a good program and is able to parlay that into some nice cushy job in Charlotte. If so, good for him, but again it would be an outcome that the actions of Petrino and Louisville had absolutely nothing to do with.
