We’ve already made some noise here about Kevin White and the early expectations, but there are people who will tell you Ronald Carswell is the junior college receiver who will make the greater impact at West Virginia.

Surely there is skill to go with the statistics and there is hope he, like White, can give WVU an explosive playmaker on the outside. While WVU does not have a Tavon Austin, it does have a handful of candidates posturing for that position. And while WVU does not have a Stedman Bailey, either, it also lacks many possibilities beyond White, unproven though ambitions K.J. Myers and heretofore perplexing Ivan McCartney.

And there is plenty to evaluate when it comes to Carswell. The single-greatest takeaway from this story in his local newspaper is not that Carswell “confirmed to the Macon Telegraph that he will continue his collegiate playing career at West Virginia” — he’s been in school for weeks already — or that he was once thought enough of to earn a scholarship from Alabama, but that Carswell is already 22 years old with three years of eligibility remaining.

This is a former four-star recruit … in 2009 … who may have needed and made the most of a drastic change in scenery from the plush confines of the Crimson Tide program to the stripped-down surroundings of a Mississippi junior college.

“I won’t say I was cocky back then,” Carswell said. “But I was, let’s say, over confident. I didn’t think that anything bad could happen to me, and I still had a lot of growing up to do. I made some mistakes, and I paid the price.”

Carswell was suspended by Alabama head coach Nick Saban and eventually left the program.

Much of Carswell’s growing up took place at Itawamba, where Saturdays were still game day for him, but it was a long way from where Carswell dreamed about playing.

“I was happy to still be playing football and thankful for the opportunity, but I can’t say it wasn’t painful for me,” Carswell said. “It was time for me to give 100 percent to becoming the best football player and person I could be. I know I had let my family and my coaches down, but I was going to do whatever I could to get back to Division I football. (Sheddrick) Risper, my high school coach at Westside, never gave up on me, but there were times when he was giving me some tough love. He was disappointed in my decision-making.

“Not everyone gets a chance to play somewhere like Alabama or any Division I school, but I always thought that I could get back.”