As the first week of Fall Practice comes to a close today, at this point things are going quietly. Which is to say:
- There have been no major injuries,
- There have been no apparent changes to the depth chart, and
- No one has quit the team.
Knock on wood as to all three of those. I will be expecting my phone call any time now from Les Miles criticizing this post speculating about the depth chart.
This is not to say there haven't been some minor injuries. Defensive tackle Charles Alexander has missed a couple of days with a "soft tissue" injury. Let's hope that's not something related to his ligament tear from last season. Also, center Brett Helms has been held out of practice for reasons unknown (to me). Some other minor things have come up, but nothing that threatens to go into the season.
Injuries happen in football, but I'm not enough of a die-hard LSU fan to applaud them happening to other teams. Both Auburn and Florida have lost key players for the season already, as Florida lost All-SEC WR/TE Cornelius Ingram and Auburn lost starting corner Aairon Savage, both with knee injuries. Good luck to those two men; I hope to see you back in the college game in 2009 (Ingram's a senior, but of course he could apply for a medical redshirt if he does not have a true redshirt available to him).
Starting today, the team is no longer split into two different squads. We now have full-squad practices, which means we get to see the true freshmen go in the same practice as the veterans. Which means, the true freshmen start getting fewer reps. Unless your name is Patrick Peterson, I think.
Let's hope our run of good luck avoiding injuries continues.
This post is late getting up because we drove in to Louisiana last night, then had to get the child back to sleep before we could go to sleep. Oversleeping then ensued.