While his UConn football teammates were busy with Tuesday’s spring practice session at the Shenkman Center, Jordan Todman was in street clothes behind the closed door of the academic support room.

Todman had been banished there by coach Randy Edsall for the day, and he’ll be back for the next football practice on Thursday, too, until he catches up on his schoolwork.

Edsall, speaking with the media during a brief practice break, discussed Todman’s academic slip with an intonation that became increasingly peevish with each word he spoke.

It wasn’t necessarily that his starting tailback and one of the Huskies’ top offensive players wasn’t living up to his end of the bargain that bothered Edsall – though it certainly didn’t help. It was more the fact that linebacker Lawrence Wilson, one of the team’s top defensive players, had suffered the same fate a week earlier.

“We had an example of Wilson not doing it, and now this week we had somebody who didn’t do what they were supposed to,” Edsall said. “That’s what bothers me. It doesn’t matter that it was Jordan Todman or whoever. When you have examples of someone not doing what they are supposed to do, you see what happens to them, and then you’re going to let it happen to you? That’s what’s disappointing.”

Wilson sat out last Tuesday and Thursday to catch up on his classwork, and returned to practice Saturday. But it wasn’t until Edsall got an academic progress report on Monday that Wilson was given the OK to return to the field Tuesday. Todman, who has missed practice time due to lax academic work in the past, will go through the same drill.

“I’m doing what I have to do, hopefully he’ll understand what he has to do,” Edsall said. “There are no stars around here. You don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you suffer the consequences. We tell them all the time, you’re going to have responsibility for which you’ll be held accountable. Sometimes, that’s the only way they wake up and understand what they need to do and what’s important.”

Todman is slated to become the Huskies’ every down back this spring after splitting time with graduated Andre Dixon last fall. As a freshman in 2008, Todman was the main backup to Donald Brown.

While Todman ran for a team-high 1,188 yards and 14 touchdowns to earn second-team All-Big East conference last season, Edsall was annoyed enough Tuesday to threaten his starting position.

Junior Kelmetrius “Meme” Wylie worked with the first team offense, and has been waiting for an opportunity to join the mix at tailback. Converted safety Jonathan Jean-Louis and redshirt freshman Martin Hyppolite are in the same boat. Junior Robbie Frey, recovering from injury, will likely be one of Todman’s main backups come fall.

“He’s up in that room, and if he thinks he has that position sewed up and can take it easy, then there’s guys out here that will go right by him and he’ll be third team if he’s not careful,” Edsall said. “If he’s not out here practicing, he won’t fit. There are guys out here that can do things.”