Jake Locker met with reporters Tuesday for the first time in a while and talked mostly about his recovery from a broken thumb, but also about the coaching search and his role on the advisory committee.
Locker said he just got the stitches out last Tuesday and has started the rehabing process, which mostly consists of trying to get movement back in his thumb.
“It’s going well,” he said. “It feels a little bit better every day, I’m able to move it a little bit farther every day. It’s definitely a slow process, though.”
Locker said there is no chance he’ll play this weekend, and that the injury was worse than originally thought, keeping him in a cast a bit longer than orinigally hoped.
“I guess they saw it was a little more serious than originally thought,” he said. “That was wishful thinking, I guess.”
Locker doesn’t know when he’ll be able to throw again, but said he has no worries about missing spring ball. He said there’s a chnace he might not get back quite the same range of motion he had before, but that he has no concerns that will hinder his ability to throw.
As for Locker’s role on the advisory committee, he said right now they are just waiting and have only had the one initial meeting.
“That meeting’s all we had,” he said. “We’re just kind of waiting for them to narrow it down and decide who they’re going to seriously start looking at.”
Asked if he has a preference on who the coach is, Locker said. “To be honest, I really have a lot of respect for Scott and how he’s dealt with a lot of things to this point. I trust him. I think he knows the game. He’s been at places that have had very successful programs and he knows what it takes to win. I have no doubt that he’s going to find the best guy for our situation and get him in here and give us the best opportunity to turn this thing around.”
Locker did say, however, than a more passionate coach might be what this team needs.
“I think it’s more kind of what we need as a football team,” he said. “We need a guy that will kind of get up and get in your face and might challenge you more outwardly in the future.”
Asked what the team needs to improve, “There’s a lot of things within our team that players need to take responsibility for. There’s a lot of things that we could have done as a team to give ourselves a better chance to win. It’s something that we’ve talked about and we’ve addressed and hopefully we’re trying to make strides in the right direction.”
PRACTICE REPORT
The team practiced inside today in shorts and shoulder pads, making this the second week in a row they’ve started the week of practice without full pads. The lack of full pads didn’t prevent a big hit, however, as Mason Foster put a big lick on tailback Terrance Dailey early in the practice.
And speaking of Foster, the sophomore linebacker had a removable cast on his his hand that was protecting his thumb. That’s an injury we haven’t heard about so far, so we’ll have to try to get more info tomorrow.
Cornerback Mesphin Forrester, who hurt his ankle in the Apple Cup, did suit up for practice, but wasn’t participating in early drills.
Jordan White-Frisbee, who had to be helped off the field after the Apple Cup, was practicing.
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