So, DeLeon Eskridge won’t be running for the Serra High football team, or anyone else, on Saturday. Padres coach Patrick Walsh confirmed Wednesday afternoon to the San Mateo County Times that the star senior has been suspended for disciplinary reasons for at least one game.

Anyone at the Riordan game last week could see, and hear, that Eskridge wasn’t a happy camper as fumble on top of fumble helped lead to a 20-3 Padres’ loss. He wasn’t alone–that’s for sure. Maybe he was the most vocal. And a crushing defeat certainly brings out emotions that might not otherwise surface.

So, while Walsh wasn’t elaborating on the reason for suspending Eskridge, he allowed that the incident(s) happened last Saturday. A yelling match with coaches on the sidelines–and that may only be part of the story–results in a suspension. Or something like that. OK. But while sitting Eskridge for at least the St. Ignatius game on Saturday may be the shocker, it’s the fallout from Walsh’s ruling that’s the real news. And that’s two-fold.

First, Walsh means business when he says, “We’re here to build men first.” And second, the fifth-place Padres are in trouble. (We’re not talking discipline, either.)

Let’s tackle the character building and it’s occasional unpleasant side first. Because the Walsh Court has deftly presided over the Padres’ fair share of improper conduct in recent years–does the gutting of the team following the felony robberies in 2005 ring a bell?–it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Serra’s coach would bench Eskridge. Even with his team “desperate for a win to climb into the WCAL race,” Walsh knew what he had to do.

“In the end, it’s my job to use football as a tool to help these kids become men,” he said Wednesday. “And sometimes, that will yield some very difficult decisions, especially when there’s a lot of other people depending on those guys. … It’s a comforting feeling knowing that I don’t coach in Texas, and that I’m free to make difficult decisions even though at some point it might mean a loss during a game.”

Walsh was on a roll: “Kids are going to make mistakes. Basically, my rules state that I can do what I need to do to maintain good discipline on the team. And I think it’s very clear from our rules that we’ll sacrifice wins here.”

The Walsh Court has been unyielding: multiple starters dismissed in 2002 and 2004, a number of two-or-more-game suspensions over the years, and then the infamous 2005 episode, in which Serra’s roster suffered double-digit casualties. So you begin to understand why Walsh bristled when he received word of some cyberspace conjecture (he doesn’t read the blogs) that he might be going easy on Eskridge.

“I think out of fairness to the decisions that we’ve made in the past, I think most people would recognize that this program isn’t a win-first program,” Walsh said. “If someone is saying, ‘If it was any other person, that person would be kicked off the team’ or whatever, if they knew me, and if they knew the history of what we’ve done here, that’s a joke. … Those people are freaking clueless.”

Back to Eskridge: “The only thing I can clarify is, what he did doesn’t deserve him being booted off the team. And what the other kids have done in the past did.”

Fair enough. So, back to the team, as it stands. The second part of the fallout.

The facts are: Serra is 1-2 in the WCAL with three games to play. The Padres’ offense can move the ball on anyone, but has shown a troubling tendency to come up short of the end zone in two of its three league games. That offense, a record-setting rushing attack, was already hurting, with hobbled running backs Tiuke Tuipulotu and J.P. Hurrell “questionable” for S.I. and quarterback Cody Jackson (the team’s leading rusher) fighting to return from an injury to his non-throwing shoulder. And now, the Padres lose Eskridge.

If Walsh was to name the team’s four most integral players, he might very well name those four. Three of them are two-way players, starring at most of those slots, and the other is the signal-caller. Eskridge–who has eight total touchdowns, including a pair as a punt returner–is definitely out. And Walsh said Wednesday that Tuipulotu and Hurrell were “fifty-fifty” to play at S.I. Uh oh.

The missing production? It’s easier to quantify on offense. Eskridge, a year removed from his 27-touchdown campaign as a junior, averages 78.6 rushing yards per game. Tuipulotu is right behind, at 76.1 rushing yards, bolting for a gaudy 9.7 yards per carry. Hurrell took on a feature role at Riordan and slashed for a game-high 95 yards on 19 carries. Then there’s Jackson, running for 85.3 yards a game with eight touchdowns on the year. And on defense, Tuipulotu, at safety, and Hurrell, a Cal-bound linebacker, are perhaps even more critical to the team’s success.

With four teams above them in the WCAL standings, the Padres’ hopes to defend their co-league championship of 2006 may already be gone–they’re closer to the cellar than the penthouse. A 3-0 finish might net them a shared title, with a lot of help. And the defense has certainly shown it can put the team in a position to win. But penalties (in the 13-10 loss at St. Francis) and turnovers (hello, Riordan) have been the undoing of an offense that has already established the program’s single-game rushing record (484 yards, vs. Gilroy) and has enjoyed a sizable advantage in total yards in each WCAL game.

Even though S.I. is still looking for its first league victory after sharing the ‘06 title with Serra, how can we say the Padres’ offense will rebound this week? Losing Eskridge alone would be a big blow, and don’t forget about his excellence in the return game. But Serra may be looking at a make-shift backfield. Already 0-2 on the road in the WCAL, the Padres are staring at a tough, tough game against an opponent frothing to right its own woes.

And if the injuries linger, or if Eskridge sits more than one week … the grand designs Serra had coming into the year will give way to a desperate attempt to simply make the Central Coast Section playoffs. Remember, as St. Francis learned so harshly last year, a team’s WCAL finish matters more than its power points. The Lancers had a better overall record and more power points than Bellarmine but sat out the postseason because the Bells’ 3-3 league record topped their mark of 2-4.

Assessing Serra’s CCS outlook, Walsh said: “If we win two of three, it’s probably automatic. If we win three, it’s automatic. If we win one of three, then it’s going to be iffy. If we don’t win any, then we’re going to be in trouble.”

St. Ignatius, then back home against Mitty, and then the finale against WCAL-leading Bellarmine.

Minus at least one key cog, crunch time begins for Serra on Saturday in San Francisco.