Fritz said it was an 87-play scrimmage with full tackling except for the quarterbacks at the Superdome. A few players got banged up but he said it was nothing serious and he plans to have a much shorter scrimmage either Thursday or Friday.
He said Macon Clark was back after spending two weeks in quarantine caused by contact tracing and nothing he had done wrong himself. Safety is the defense's lone thin spot, with walk-on Jonathan Mestayer getting reps with the second unit in Clark's absence, so his return is significant.
I will have more from Fritz later, but I did ask him about how the scholarship deal would work if this were a free year and everybody remained the class they were at the start of the season, as the NCAA announced earlier this week. He gave a thorough answer.
"That's one of the things they are trying to figure out. Obviously they are going to have to give us some kind of latitude for next year. What I'm concerned about is the year after that because that's when you start getting into problems. We've already committed to signing 25 guys. I know they are going to work with us on the numbers next year. I'm not sure about the year after. I think it's the right move without question. There is so much uncertainty right now. When the season gets over I'm going to sit down and talk to my seniors. Some of the guys will be graduating and may want to move on. Some of the guys are going to get drafted in my opinion, and we want what's best for them certainly. That was the big to me question mark going into the season. You start having guys opt out from other teams. I told our guys unless you know what's going on because I don't--I have no idea what's going on--let's just stay and see what happens, and that's what all our guys did. They waited to see what happened, and when that (decision not to count the year for eligibility purposes), that kind of reassured everybody that, hey, this is not going to hurt me one way or the other. I think it was a great move by the NCAA."
He said Macon Clark was back after spending two weeks in quarantine caused by contact tracing and nothing he had done wrong himself. Safety is the defense's lone thin spot, with walk-on Jonathan Mestayer getting reps with the second unit in Clark's absence, so his return is significant.
I will have more from Fritz later, but I did ask him about how the scholarship deal would work if this were a free year and everybody remained the class they were at the start of the season, as the NCAA announced earlier this week. He gave a thorough answer.
"That's one of the things they are trying to figure out. Obviously they are going to have to give us some kind of latitude for next year. What I'm concerned about is the year after that because that's when you start getting into problems. We've already committed to signing 25 guys. I know they are going to work with us on the numbers next year. I'm not sure about the year after. I think it's the right move without question. There is so much uncertainty right now. When the season gets over I'm going to sit down and talk to my seniors. Some of the guys will be graduating and may want to move on. Some of the guys are going to get drafted in my opinion, and we want what's best for them certainly. That was the big to me question mark going into the season. You start having guys opt out from other teams. I told our guys unless you know what's going on because I don't--I have no idea what's going on--let's just stay and see what happens, and that's what all our guys did. They waited to see what happened, and when that (decision not to count the year for eligibility purposes), that kind of reassured everybody that, hey, this is not going to hurt me one way or the other. I think it was a great move by the NCAA."
