Alley Broussard, a former starting running back for the 2003 national champion LSU Tigers, will play his final collegiate season at Missouri Southern State University.
The Times Daily of Alabama, reported Friday and the Joplin Globe reported today that Broussard, who left Louisiana State after the 2006 season has turned down an offer from the University of North Alabama to come to MSSU.
Broussard ran for 389 yards and four touchdowns as a freshman during the Tigers' championship season. His sophomore season was even better as he ran for 867 yards and 10 touchdowns and set a school record when he ran for 250 yards (and scored three touchdowns in a win over Ole Miss.
Broussard was redshirted after suffering a knee injury in 2005, but returned last year to run for 281 yards and four touchdowns.
The Times Daily reported it this way:
North Alabama will hold its first scrimmage today and it will do so without Alley Broussard.
The former LSU standout was expected to join the Lions on Friday. However, Broussard had a change of heart and now is expected to transfer to Missouri Southern State, according to a source close to the UNA team. Broussard's decision apparently was based on Missouri Southern's pro-style offense being a better fit for him than UNA's one-back, spread offense. Missouri Southern State is a Division II in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the same conference as Division II power Northwest Missouri State.
Broussard's decision did not sit well with Times Daily columnist Gregg DeWalt, who wrote in today's edition:
The program's savior must have walked out of his home Friday and turned north from Lousiana toward Missouri instead of angling his vehicle northeast toward Florence and North Alabama's campus.
Maybe the savior got lost and somehow ended up in Joplin, Mo., and decided it was as good a place as any to play his last season of college football.
Sometime between the time he visited the Shoals earlier this week and Friday morning, the savior realized playing football in Braly Stadium and playing for a national championship contender didn't quite have the same feel as playing in Tiger Stadium on a Saturday night in Baton Rouge.
Maybe he decided carries were more important than wins at this point in his career.
Alley Broussard was the hottest topic around UNA last week - forget 106-dgree temps and all the rest. Everybody wanted to know if LSU's single-game rushing leader would sign with the Lions. For a time, it appeared he would.
Instead, Broussard is taking his talented and 230-pound frame to Missouri Southern, a Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association team that won five games, lost six and didn't sniff the playoffs in 2006.
It should be noted that North Alabama's team nickname is also Lions. More of Dewalt's column can be found at this link.
Jim Fryar's article in today's Joplin Globe tells the story from the MSSU vantage point.
3 comments:
UNA column sounds like sour grapes. Broussard and Hinspeter sounds like a winning combination.
Randy:
Just wanted to let you know KODE and KSN had the story friday at 6 and 10 long before Fryar or anyone else caught wind of Alley actually being in Joplin. I understand sports is not all that important, but when it it, the Globe sleeps.
Thanks for the information. When school starts, I almost always end up missing the local news, and have to catch it in the paper or on the internet. I will try to pay a little closer attention.
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