Or teammates. They may be among his friends, or maybe not.
How about this? What if he never even showed up for any of the practices?
Like, he wanted to go to Tennessee, academically, but his mom would only pay for it if he agreed to try out for the football team, like she was convinced he had the talent to make it, but he had no interest, so he went to school, and kept telling her he was a walk-on, but not really he was just going to class.
And finally she said something about going to talk to the coaches or whatever, which would mean the gig was up for him, so he told his mom he was putting his name into the transfer portal. So he could at least buy time to the end of the semester?
Something like that?
It's a dang mystery.