Cedric Houston has returned to Knoxville to weigh his options. Football apparently isn’t one of them.

The former University of Tennessee running back abruptly left the New York Jets on the eve of training camp.

Houston’s mother, Lynette, told The New York Times that she called Cedric after learning that tailback Thomas Jones crumpled to the turf with an injury to his right calf muscle during practice last Sunday.

“Ced,” she said she told him, “That was your opportunity right there.” His response, she said, was a dispassionate, “Well.”

Recounting the conversation during a telephone interview with the newspaper on Tuesday, Lynette Houston laughed ruefully, saying, “I don’t know what Ced has in his mind.”

If Houston, who averaged 3.3 yards in 113 carries last season with one start, had stayed for camp, he might have been in the starting lineup for the Jets, who play host to the Minnesota Vikings tonight in their second preseason game. In Tuesday’s practice, Leon Washington, who started eight games last year, was the only running back who stood out.

“When Ced left home for New York, he had high hopes,” Lynette Houston said.

If Houston had fallen out of love with football, his mother said she was not aware of it. She said that during the off-season, she watched him carefully monitor his diet, eschewing red meat for fish. She said he appeared to be in great shape and was in good spirits when he left for New York a few days before the July 26 reporting date for camp.

The first indication she received that Houston was unhappy was when he called her on the eve of camp and told her he was done.

“Done with what?” she said, to which she said he replied, “Done playing football.”

“He can tell me that until he’s blue in the face, and I won’t believe it,” Lynette Houston said. “The way he did it, it doesn’t make any sense. I wish he would go back. I believe he needs football. He’s got to be bored.”

She said that when she asked her son what he planned to do, he talked about completing work on his degree in sociology. Lynette Houston said he did not sound as if he was entertaining any second thoughts about leaving football.

“He says he is fine,” she said. “I tell him as long as he’s not doing drugs or getting into trouble, I’ll support him in whatever he does. If he does have second thoughts, I’m hoping he’s not too proud to go back and admit he made a mistake like that.”

Jets coach Eric Mangini said he had not spoken to the 25-year-old Houston since he left. In the wake of Jones’s injury, he was asked if he would consider reaching out to Houston to see if he had any interest in coming back.

“We’re always open to any possibility,” Mangini said. “But with that, those are personal decisions, and I respect the decision he made.”

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.