Tulane received a scare at the end of practice yesterday when Tyler Grubbs suffered a knee injury, but it looks like he will be OK. I held off on reporting it because Jon Sumrall said he did not know what had happened and would have real info today after they got the injury imaged. It turns out the image revealed no structural damage, and Sumrall said he would it be an issue of pain tolerance as to whether Grubbs would play against South Florida and he would leave it up to Grubbs, one of the toughest guys on the team, to decide. If Grubbs cannot go, Dickson Agu would start in his place.
It's just a little knee. We imaged it and there was nothing structural, substantial like you're out, but we wanted to be thorough. The news we got back was positive. Now does he play Saturday? A little bit of how does he feel in the next 48 hours. I'm not going to push him to play. I told him it's your body and you're a tough dude. The way he's wired, I'm comfortable with whatever decision he needs to make."
Obviously not having Grubbs, who is the definition of a the term "football player," would be a blow, but for the most part, the injury news is good. Sumrall expects Adin Huntington to play Saturday, and Josh Remetich will start after both missed significant practice this week. Jacob Barnes, though, will miss his second consecutive game, leaving all of the kicking duties to Ethan Head. Head held up pretty well against ULL, hitting his first two field goals and all of his extra points until missing what could have been a critical field goal in the fourth quarter in addition to getting touchbacks on all but one his kickoffs. He was supposed to share kickoff duties with Patrick Durkin, who was absolutely booming them during preseasons drills, but Durkin missed the first four games with an injury.
"Barnes should be back next week," Sumrall said. "Durkin I'm going to say after the bye."
Today was the walk-through, which under Sumrall is an extended version of what every other team I have covered does on Friday. They practice without helmets on, and at the end, they called out units for special teams while saying a couple of players were out to make sure the backups ran on the field in a timely manner.
I asked Sumrall about his decision to conduct walk-throughs on Thursday instead of Friday.
"The first time I experienced doing it, I was at Troy as an assistant coach," he said. "The first year doing it I was really uncomfortable with the flow, and then we did it my last years as an assistant there and went like 21 and something (5) and it worked pretty well and we did it at Kentucky and it worked pretty well and we did it at Troy when I was back as the head coach. A lot of it started from Chip Kelly at Oregon with track research. If you ask world-class sprinters, they don't just stay sedentary the day before the meet. They do a little bit of movement, so that's why we do a run-through on Friday. I'm not a scientist, but I study all of the GPS catapult data. I talk to (strength and conditioning coordinator Rusty) Whitt. We're very intentional. There's a reason why Sunday is our day off. The day after a game if you've played college football, your body is beat up. The model is Sunday to recover, hydrate, eat, treatment, do school. Monday runaround, about like we do on Fridays. Tuesday, Wednesday work. Tuesday's a real work day, Wednesday's a shorter work day. Thursday's a walk-through to get some more recovery in. Friday tune your body up fast. You want to rev the engine a little. The neuro, the science stuff will tell you you need to go run a little the day before the game. It's not perfect, but doing the research and talking to people who are far smarter than me, I think it's a pretty good method."
It's just a little knee. We imaged it and there was nothing structural, substantial like you're out, but we wanted to be thorough. The news we got back was positive. Now does he play Saturday? A little bit of how does he feel in the next 48 hours. I'm not going to push him to play. I told him it's your body and you're a tough dude. The way he's wired, I'm comfortable with whatever decision he needs to make."
Obviously not having Grubbs, who is the definition of a the term "football player," would be a blow, but for the most part, the injury news is good. Sumrall expects Adin Huntington to play Saturday, and Josh Remetich will start after both missed significant practice this week. Jacob Barnes, though, will miss his second consecutive game, leaving all of the kicking duties to Ethan Head. Head held up pretty well against ULL, hitting his first two field goals and all of his extra points until missing what could have been a critical field goal in the fourth quarter in addition to getting touchbacks on all but one his kickoffs. He was supposed to share kickoff duties with Patrick Durkin, who was absolutely booming them during preseasons drills, but Durkin missed the first four games with an injury.
"Barnes should be back next week," Sumrall said. "Durkin I'm going to say after the bye."
Today was the walk-through, which under Sumrall is an extended version of what every other team I have covered does on Friday. They practice without helmets on, and at the end, they called out units for special teams while saying a couple of players were out to make sure the backups ran on the field in a timely manner.
I asked Sumrall about his decision to conduct walk-throughs on Thursday instead of Friday.
"The first time I experienced doing it, I was at Troy as an assistant coach," he said. "The first year doing it I was really uncomfortable with the flow, and then we did it my last years as an assistant there and went like 21 and something (5) and it worked pretty well and we did it at Kentucky and it worked pretty well and we did it at Troy when I was back as the head coach. A lot of it started from Chip Kelly at Oregon with track research. If you ask world-class sprinters, they don't just stay sedentary the day before the meet. They do a little bit of movement, so that's why we do a run-through on Friday. I'm not a scientist, but I study all of the GPS catapult data. I talk to (strength and conditioning coordinator Rusty) Whitt. We're very intentional. There's a reason why Sunday is our day off. The day after a game if you've played college football, your body is beat up. The model is Sunday to recover, hydrate, eat, treatment, do school. Monday runaround, about like we do on Fridays. Tuesday, Wednesday work. Tuesday's a real work day, Wednesday's a shorter work day. Thursday's a walk-through to get some more recovery in. Friday tune your body up fast. You want to rev the engine a little. The neuro, the science stuff will tell you you need to go run a little the day before the game. It's not perfect, but doing the research and talking to people who are far smarter than me, I think it's a pretty good method."
