There can be few more sobering heralds to the coming of the college football season than Tuesday’s disclosures about Tyler Hilinski, the late Washington State quarterback.

Hilinski, who took his own, young life, in January at age 21, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative brain disease, at the time of his suicide, his parents revealed on NBC’s “Today.”

Before burying their son, the family donated his brain to the Mayo Clinic for study, hoping to gain some understanding of what might have been behind the tragic loss.

Sports Illustrated reported a toxicology report upon Hilinski’s death found no trace of drugs or alcohol in his blood.

The results of the autopsy and study, announced Tuesday, were shocking. “The medical examiner said he had the brain of a 65-year-old, which was really hard to take,” father Mark Hilinski told “Today.”

“It was a shock to get those results and find out he had (CTE) and to realize that this sport that he loved may have contributed to that diagnosis,” Kym, his mother, said on “Today.”

The family said it was told he had stage 1 CTE.

In the past year the numbers surrounding CTE, while shocking, have largely focused on much older, retired pro players.

Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the most comprehensive study on the subject to that point, reported that in a study of 111 deceased former NFL players, 110 were determined to have CTE.

Among them was John Wilbur, a Stanford graduate, All-Pro NFL player, World Football League veteran, rugby player and a University of Hawaii assistant coach who died at age 70 in 2013.

With the addition of the brains of Canadian Football League veterans, semi-pros and others, 202 former athletes were studied and, overall, 99 percent were suspected to have CTE.

It should be remembered that this was not a blind sampling, but people, for the most part, whose families had some reason to suspect there might have been brain damage. Still, the numbers were troubling.

The case of Hilinski, because of his age and experience, raises additional concerns. He would have been a redshirt junior this fall and the Cougars’ projected starter, but had played in just a dozen games in college. Before high school he had been a linebacker.

“He was probably one of the youngest of those whose brain had been donated for autopsy for CTE,” said Nathan Murata, who has headed the Hawaii Concussion Awareness and Management Program.

HCAMP oversees baseline statewide testing for high school athletes in all sports and also provides education on awareness and prevention down to middle and elementary school levels.

“Did football kill Tyler? I don’t think so,” Hilinski’s mother, Kym, told Sports Illustrated in a documentary. “Did he get CTE from football? Probably. Was that the only thing that attributed to his death? I don’t know.”

The fact is, after years of denial by the NFL and allegations of foot-dragging by the NCAA, which earlier this month reached an undisclosed settlement on a suit brought by the wife of a deceased University of Texas football player, we don’t know nearly as much as we should.

As we get ready to begin another college football season, Hilinski’s death presents a lot of deeper, more disturbing questions that bring a renewed urgency for answers.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.