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From his first day on campus, at Rutgers' summer passing camp, Jefferson said he "felt like I was at home." From her first phone conversation with Rutgers' coaches, when assistant Chris Demarest "pulled out of traffic to the side of the road," Lane said she "felt bonded." Jefferson committed to Rutgers on Aug. 11 and stuck to that after visits to Auburn and Tennessee.

But then in mid-October, the family took a visit to LSU, where Jefferson said he started thinking "how easy it would be for my family to come see me."

Lane said she didn't like her son's subsequent Oct. 22 commitment to LSU and her voice still held some reproach when she said, "It was bad de-committing." But even as Jefferson vouched that his mother had always preferred Rutgers, Lane said, "Don't blame DC. We all got caught in the hype of LSU."

A month later, the hype had worn thin.

Wary of bad-mouthing LSU, Jefferson cautiously said, "I was told some things and then they didn't come true." Rutgers' coaches, meanwhile, kept everything "straightforward," Lane said, and "didn't sugarcoat anything." Offensive coordinator John McNulty's calls always opened with queries of school and his family, Jefferson said, and the teenager said, "He really seems like he cares about me as a person and not just an athlete."

And so, though he's coming to campus on an official visit Friday, Jefferson said he didn't need to wait to change his mind back. He very candidly giggled when asked if Rutgers' fans really should trust this commitment (For the record, he said, "Yes -- I'm 100 percent Rutgers") and, like his mother, he managed to sound worried New Jerseyans will think him a flake. Of course, the Feb. 6 national signing day is still two months off.

"I'm very excited and I do want to be Rutgers' quarterback of the future," he said. Jefferson said he fully expects to be eligible and his mother promised, "I'm staying on top of everything."

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"My impression is that in his mind, for whatever reason, he has scratched LSU," Winter Haven Coach Charles Tate said Tuesday. "I know (LSU assistant) Coach (Earl) Lane is going to talk to him again."

Tate said he left school Monday unaware that his quarterback had made a second about-face and that he had scheduled an official visit to Rutgers for this weekend.

"(His reasons) just didn't make sense to me, and I don't want to elaborate on what they are," Tate said. "I don't get it. His reasons don't hold water in a man's world. Maybe they do in a boy's world. I hope it's just something that he's going through. It sounds like he doesn't want a lot of competition and that he's nervous about the competition at LSU."

"If D.C. wants to take a trip to make sure he's OK about his decision, that's one thing. I know he got a little nervous over the rumors of Coach (Les) Miles going to Michigan. But I don't understand the decommit and the recommit and the decommit and the recommit and all of that."

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"I know that he's getting on a plane Friday to go to Rutgers," Tate said. "What that means to his commitment to one school or another, I don't know. I'm not quite as involved as I once was. In the day and age of cell phones, they just call them direct. I'm sort of a third wheel at this point."

Tate said he didn't know why Jefferson chose to take another visit, but he said it's likely that Jefferson just wanted to reaffirm his college choice and weight all his options.

"That's what I'm hoping," Tate said. "I'm hoping that he just wants make the right decision."

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Tate said playing time at both schools may have been an issue as well.

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"He's wrestling hard with what the competition is and what's on people's rosters," Tate said. "He wants to go and play, not go and watch."