Instead, we got a rumor of bad news from the media, who didn't say what the bad news was. So, people start wanting to know what happened.

BYU needed to announce that a player was being punished for breaking team rules and maybe even give some idea of the severity of the punishment. It would satisfy many people since they would know what is going on; I don't think most people would care about the details. Instead, BYU didn't announce anything and we had everyone wondering what was going on, with people scrambling to find what the "Bad News" was. This set off a feeding frenzy, which frequently does get out of control.

I understand keeping some of these quiet the week leading up to a game, from a competitive standpoint (not letting your opponent know of missing players ahead of time). But a month before Spring Practice, there is no reason to not announce it.