If he'd torn an ACL, sure. Couldn't take another minute of college? Maybe. But a break-up with his girlfriend? No, Loretta Poree wasn't going to stand for that.

Of all the reasons for her son, Albert, to be standing in his mother's living room a week before the season began, a romantic dilemma wasn't the one Loretta expected. Or would put up with.

But there stood Albert, a stunning and sheepish addition to her New Orleans home. He should have been in a different time zone, playing football for Georgia Tech, where the sophomore was scribbled in as the Jackets' starting CB and the team was preparing for its 2001 opener against Syracuse, just days away.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him.

Albert told her how he and his longtime girlfriend had broken up over the phone, and he flew standby home to handle the matter. At any other time in Albert's life, Loretta and her husband, Albert Sr., would have hugged their 20-year-old son and talked him through the puppy love stage. But not this time. No way.

They'd seen Albert endure too much -- the misunderstood verbal commitment to Miami, the average freshman season at Notre Dame, the lost year after transferring to Georgia Tech -- to blow his opportunity with the Jackets. When Albert stepped into their home, unannounced to everyone (including the miffed Georgia Tech coaching staff), they saw all that evaporate.

"If I could've blinked him back, like I Dream of Jeannie, I would've," said his father.

Poree missed the Jackets' Monday practice and never alerted the Tech staff he'd left town. Despite an explanatory phone call from Loretta, coach George O'Leary benched him for the first quarter of the game against Syracuse.

That stunted Poree's growth by another 15 minutes, but he's gotten plenty of game time since then. He started against The Citadel and Navy in Georgia Tech's next two wins. He'll need every second of that game experience on Saturday, when Tech goes to Florida State in what could be a battle for the eventual ACC title.

Although he may seem a little green, Poree played more games than anyone else on the Georgia Tech football team a year ago. They just didn't count, except to him. To all his teammates, those tedious Tuesday or Wednesday practices were a time to tinker, a time to fine-tune. For Poree, redshirting after his transfer from Notre Dame, those practices were his only chance to wow the coaching staff. And he did.

"I didn't have a game to get ready for on Saturday," says Poree, whom O'Leary calls his most improved player. "All our practices were my games."

One year -- and plenty of sideline Saturdays -- later, Poree won a starting CB gig with the Jackets. It capped a roundabout journey. As a high school senior, the recruiting process wore down Poree and his family. Letters piled up. Phone calls rolled in from the early morning until late at night. The bashful Albert wasn't prepared.

"It should have been the happiest days of his life," Loretta Poree says. "But some days, he didn't even want to come home."

Things worsened when Poree began his campus visits. He got swept up in the emotion of a recruiting trip to Miami, and apparently verbally committed to be a Hurricane. Until a reporter called the Porees and asked Loretta about her son's decision to go to Miami.

"Huh?" she said, oblivious and very much opposed to Albert committing to Miami so soon.

When he returned, the Porees sat down and decided Albert should take all his visits. When he'd done that, Notre Dame was his favorite.

Poree played in five games as a frosh for Notre Dame, mostly on special teams patrol. But he didn't feel comfortable, suffering from what his parents called "culture shock" while away from New Orleans. So he hit the road.

Poree endured a broken right wrist in spring practice, a dislocated ring finger on his left hand and now a broken heart to go with his U-turn to GTech. That's a lot for any 20-year-old to handle.

"He's of age ... numerically," his father says. "But he has many more years until he becomes a seasoned man."

This weekend, Poree's abilities will be tested. The Jackets figure to bunch up at the line of scrimmage and jam the Noles ground game, which would force FSU QB Chris Rix to the air. With vet Marvious Hester (15 career starts) on one side of the field, Rix'll probably be aiming in Poree's direction.

Good thing broken hearts mend fast.

E-mail Ryan Hockensmith at ryan.x.hockensmith-nd@espnmag.com.