Yes, Alabama fans were bracing for this after rumors began to fly on Tuesday night. And yes, regardless of the intense hype that accompanied his arrival on campus in January, we are talking about a true freshman likely to begin the season as a third-stringer. It still doesn’t make this afternoon’s confirmation that five-star tailback Dee Hart is likely out for the entire 2011 season any easier to swallow:

TUSCALOOSA | Talented freshman running back Dee Hart sustained a knee injury Tuesday, a source close to Hart told TideSports.com.

The injury was also confirmed by Hart’s former position coach at Orlando Dr. Phillips High School, Riki Smith, who said the freshman tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

“He’s good, you know Dee,” Smith told the Orlando Sentinel. “If that had to happen to any of our kids, that’s who I’d rather it happened to because he has the right mindset. The trainer told him ‘ok, you have surgery on Thursday and can start rehab next week’ and Dee said ‘what about Friday?’”

Hart is slated for surgery on Thursday morning; as his old coach suggests, he’ll start rehab on Friday if all goes according to plan. But he won’t see the field this fall, which was certainly part of the plan after his spectacular prep career and solid debut in spring practice.

Obviously, Alabama is not hurting for running backs. Even with Mark Ingram gone to the New Orleans Saints in the first round of the draft, ‘Bama brings back another massively hyped Florida product, Trent Richardson, who’s being floated as a Heisman frontrunner in his own right with two years in the system and a full-time workload for the first time. His backup, Eddie Lacy, averaged 7.3 yards per carry with six touchdowns in the third-string role as a redshirt freshman, including a 62-yard sprint to finish off what was left of Michigan State in the bowl game. Another coveted member of the incoming signing class, Brent Calloway, joins the fray next month.

Still, on a depth chart full of between-the-tackles thumpers — Richardson, Lacy and Calloway are all in the 220-pound range, and sophomore Jalston Fowler is even bigger — the shifty, 5-foot-9, 187-pound Hart figured to bring an entirely different element as a both a receiver out of the backfield (he added over 1,000 yards receiving to his prolific rushing stats as a high school senior) and a kick returner. Not that Trent Richardson can’t do all of that, too; he has 39 catches over two years and took a kickoff to the house last year as the primary kick returner. But if Richardson is set for the Mark Ingram role in the ambitious re-staging of the Tide’s 2009 national championship run, Hart’s absence also means there’s one less candidate for the essential supporting role Richardson played that year on his way up.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Welcome, Florida fans, to the first official “Will Muschamp is Not Urban Meyer” moment of the new administration at the expense of your starting defense: Senior cornerback Janoris Jenkins, a three-year starter and All-SEC pick who by all accounts passed on a first-round projection in this week’s draft to return to school, has been officially booted from the team in the wake of his second marijuana arrest in four months. The misdemeanor charge Jenkins picked up over the weekend was the third arrest of his college career, and leaves the Gators at the mercy of three new starters in the secondary — one of whom may now very well be a true freshman. Total buzz kill.

It also marks an apparent shift in weed wariness in Gainesville, which had earned a reputation under Meyer as one of the most weed-friendly programs in the country. Former cornerback Wondy Pierre-Louis told the Orlando Sentinel last year that he guessed 75 percent of the 2008 BCS championship team got high on at least a semi-regular basis, presumably including stars Percy Harvin and Aaron Hernandez, who were both plagued by rumors of multiple failed drug tests going into the draft.

Another future first-round pick, defensive tackle Marcus Thomas, remained in the fold after failing at least two drug tests in 2006. (Thomas was eventually kicked off the team that November, according to him, for breaking curfew, going on an unapproved out-of-town trip and missing a mandatory drug-education class, but said at the time he didn’t fail a third test.) Of the four Gators arrested for marijuana possession between 2005 and 2009, none served more than a brief suspension following the arrest, though two of them — cornerback Jacques Rickerson and lineman Ronnie Wilson — were later booted for more serious charges. Already this year, two other Gators, Chris Martin and Kedric Johnson, picked up marijuana charges in January, and remain on the team.

As far as I can tell, then, Jenkins is the first of many pot-loving Gators whose indulgence has actually cost him a spot on the team in at least six years. If Muschamp is determined to get that “75 percent” number down, even behind closed doors, booting a first-round draft pick is a good way to get there. It may not be so good for the win column, but you know, everybody has to choose their battles.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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