Gibson and Shaffer Leave, Carmona Cut, RGM

Dave Reardon writes that safety Le'Marcus Gibson and receiver Eric Shaffer are leaving the team.

Freshman safety Le’Marcus Gibson, a player many had high hopes for, is home in Mississippi and will not return to UH.

“Right now I’m thinking about going to a JC,” Gibson said in a phone interview with the Star-Bulletin today. “Nothing against Hawaii. I just think it’s a more comfortable situation here for me.”

Also, speedy wide receiver Eric Shaffer is leaving UH without having played a down.

Shaffer put up big football numbers in high school in Fayetteville, Ark., and was a state sprint champ with a 10.57 in the 100 meters.

He redshirted last year, and got quite a few reps at slotback in spring practice last month.

Counting Korey Reynolds and Erik Pedersen (edit: and Jared Lene), that's four five scholarship players to leave UH in the past few days. Reardon sums it up:

The good news is this frees up scholarships for other deserving players, including projected starters. The bad news is it counts against UH’s APR rating in future years.

If a player wants to leave school for better playing opportunities, homesickness, personal reasons, etc., why does the school they're leaving get punished?

UPDATE (5/10/08): Here's an expanded article on Gibson and Shaffer's departure, by Dave Reardon.

Stephen Tsai writes that Camron Carmona was among the players who won't be invited to fall camp, though he may rejoin the team after rosters expand on the first day of the fall semester.

And from the Houston Texans website, an article about the undrafted free agents in minicamp, which includes a short profile of Ryan Grice-Mullen, as well as a video interview on the right side of the page.

UPDATE: KGMB's Liz Chun has a story about RGM in Houston, with an excerpt from the above video, and the inevitability of the Mullen in his last name.