Brandon Hogan, de facto hero of WVU’s rather thin corps of cornerbacks, appears to have been relieved of his duty for the time being. The soon-to-be senior from a town in northern Virginia was cited — read: not arrested — after 1 a.m. Sunday for public urination and disorderly conduct.

Bad move, but even worse timing.

Hogan ran the stadium steps for the duration of the first four spring practices and then was taken out of uniform all together and put in the team’s academic center to work on his academics the first two practices last week.

“His butt wasn’t in shape early on, so we got him in shape first,” Coach Bill Stewart told me. “Now we’re trying to get him into academic shape.”

Well, Hogan was out of the academic center and, presumably, the dog house, too, when he practiced Friday and scrimmaged Saturday. Then Sunday morning happened. Stewart issued the standard wait-until-all-the-facts-are-in message Monday, but WVU’s best corner was again off the field and not with the team for Tuesday’s practice.

The change in status prompted curiosity, but Tuesday was a day Stewart wasn’t scheduled to meet with the media — assistants and players only, as previously planned — and he instead fielded a request to address Hogan’s status through his sports information intermediary and then responded to the media through the same intermediary.

Mike Montoro, director of football communications, relayed a message from Stewart to the media after Tuesday’s practice and said Hogan was again in the team’s academic area doing school work.

A fluid situation, of course, but right now Hogan is not suspended and is again working on academics, which, for the purpose of being comprehensive, means he’s also still on the team.

I very much doubt he’s kicked off the team, but you do have to wonder about reliability now.

Hogan, who missed the 2008 Tire Bowl with an undisclosed personal issue that reportedly had him hospitalized that week, had clearly bothered Stewart last week. The coach who recruited Hogan was some combination of mad at and disappointed with Hogan when he addressed the academic stuff. The leash was certainly short then.

Now this.

And all of these things come after rumblings of something during the offseason — maybe academics, maybe conditioning, maybe something connected to the stairs and the studying the first two weeks of spring practice, but maybe something else.

This is not to say a citation for public urination is the final straw or a cause for dismissal or suspension. Kids do dumb things and this isn’t nearly as dumb as some other things that have merited suspension and either triggered or avoided dismissal.

But kids do dumb things at dumb times and this is certainly that. If you wonder about reliability, you must also wonder about the accumulation effect.