RP makes national news

Ryan Perrilloux and the JSU football team picked up some national pub in Sports Illustrated this week.

The mag sent a writer to town to do an update on the Gamecocks' quarterback.

Here are a couple highlights off the Web:

"Ryan Perrilloux can't take his eyes off Colt McCoy. Perrilloux, the former LSU quarterback who is a senior at Division I-AA Jacksonville (Ala.) State, is sitting in a booth at Strut's, a burger joint in this sleepy town of 8,400 in the Appalachian foothills. On a mounted TV, highlights of McCoy and the Texas Longhorns are playing, which takes Perrilloux back in time. 'I almost went to Texas, and maybe my life would have turned out differently if I had,' he says. 'But now I'm here in Jacksonville, rebuilding my reputation and trying to show the NFL that I have tools to make it at that level.' "

You can't do a story about Perrilloux without talking about the way he got to JSU, and this piece touches on it, but largely focuses on where his head is now. It says most NFL scouts project him as a mid-round draft pick.

More from the Web ...

"For the first time, he wasn't surrounded by childhood friends. 'I had a lot of negative influences around me at LSU,' he says. Though it's hard to find trouble in Jacksonville, where churches outnumber bars 49 to two, Perrilloux hasn't been choirboy perfect; he was suspended for the first game of this season by Crowe for an undisclosed reason. But Perrilloux now meets with a life-management counselor (in Anniston) weekly and can usually be found in his apartment with his fiancée, Ralle Banks, whom he has been dating since he was 14, and their one-year-old daughter, Ryleigh."

The story wasn't just based on a conversation with Perrilloux and JSU coach Jack Crowe. It even includes a quote from Wellborn product/teammate Brandt Thomas.

When the train comes in, everybody rides.