“You’re watching, saying ‘Man, those are plays I could be making,’” Edwards said. “It’s hard getting into a rhythm.”
Edwards, a junior who’s appeared in 13 games but has yet to record a stat, has not practiced since Thursday, when he caught a slant and turned his ankle during McNeese’s end of practice two-minute drill.
He attempted to run the wind sprints that followed.
“The last gasser,” Edwards explained, “the foot came from under me and it rolled.”
Preceding the ankle injury was a concussion. Edwards spent the necessitated time on the sidelines before he was cleared.
His ankle turned three days later.
“We won’t miss a step,” Edwards says, a wide smile flashing across his face while he speaks of the man taking his snaps.
Even when Edwards is fully healthy, he and freshman Parker Orgeron will be interchangeable at H-back. Orgeron is, officially, listed as Edwards’ backup on the two-deep depth chart.
“But he’s going to play a lot,” coach Lance Guidry said last week. “It’s 3rd and 8 and you need a guy to catch the ball and make the first down, I feel really good about Parker Orgeron. When you can say that about a freshman, that’s kind of speaking to my confidence in him.”
During Edwards’ many sideline stints this fall, Orgeron’s run with the first team, impressing the entire Cowboys staff with crisp route running and plus-hands.
He flashed across the middle during Tuesday’s practice. The cornerback pulled up, seeing the ball sailing high over Orgeron’s head.
Orgeron leaped into the air, catching the football at the height of his jump. Guidry chided his defender.
“You think you don’t have to cover him,” Guidry yelled. “You can’t stop. You have to be all over 1-9.”
No. 19’s early success has come, partly, because of Edwards and his sideline teachings.
“Reading coverages and finding soft spots,” Edwards explained. “Basically … just seeing it before it happened. Like if you can see it before it happens, it makes the game that much easier, that much faster.”
Oregeron, the son of LSU defensive line coach and former McNeese graduate assistant Ed Orgeron, was informed throughout his recruiting process he’d contend for immediate playing time, so the depth chart ascent does not surprise him.
Some teammates, though?
“He’s a hell of a ballplayer,” Kent Shelby says. “I honestly didn’t know he was good like that. I never heard of him until I found out he was coming and found out his dad is the (defensive) line coach at LSU.”
Parker gives a facetious roll of the eyes when Ed’s mentioned. Dad inevitably becomes the focal subject of many conversations with the son who shows some of his notorious exuberance while running routes.
“I’m just a competitor,” Parker says. “When the ball’s in the air, it’s mine or nobody’s. So either I’m getting it or it’s hitting the ground.”
Edwards expects to return to practice Wednesday and is, surprisingly, ahead of schedule with the injury that forced him to crutches last Friday and Saturday.
If the decision is solely his, Edwards says he’ll play in McNeese’s Saturday opener against Tarleton State, teaming with Orgeron.
“A lot of older guys feel threatened when you got a freshman coming in that can play,” Edwards said. “But the fact that the passion he brings to the game … Aside from football, he’s just a good-spirited person.
“Me having to teach him helped elevate my game as well as his. I love it. He made me better and I made him better. I love the guy.”
from American Press: Your Best News And Advertising Source - Home http://ift.tt/2bQKvI9
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment