I give up. Reading coachspeak like this is absolutely futile.
Because after Tuesday's practice, coach Greg Schiano admitted for the first time that there is a "chance" that Young -- who has not played since the opening game against Fresno State -- may not play, let alone run, again this season.
"He seems to be having setbacks here and there," Schiano said.
When pressed if Young might miss the rest of the season, Schiano responded: "There's a chance anything can happen, right?"
He paused for a few seconds before saying: "Yeah, yeah, there's a chance."
I don't like reading into the logic of these kind of statements because it opens the door to speculation and obfuscation. Somewhere, there's a probability of what Young's chances are to return this year. Maybe you have to keep it under wraps to keep opponents guessing.
"It's not his surgery, it's not his surgery," he said. "His repair is fine. It's a different injury."
Each week, Schiano has said Young continues to make progress toward getting back on the field. However, before each game, the Rutgers coach has cited Young's inability to be fully ready as the reason why he has not played since the opening game.
"He's just not ready yet," Schiano said Saturday night after the win over Morgan State. "We evaluated him. He's getting better, no doubt about it. But he's just not ready yet."
The always-optimistic Schiano hasn't ruled out the possibility of Young coming back this season. The uncertainty, though, is the question.
"Well, we know what it (the injury) is," he said. "It's just slow healing. Now, I really thought he'd be able to go (Tuesday). So it takes -- maybe tomorrow he'll be ready. ... I mean, you can see it. You can see when it feels good, you can see when it's hurting."
In other running back injury news, Schiano acknowledged that Robinson -- originally intended to be Young's backup -- has been slowed by a hip pointer, suffered during the team's first scrimmage in training camp.
"Mason's really struggled with the hip pointer," Schiano said. "Hip pointers don't go away. So a hip pointer is one of those things that every step you take (it hurts). It just wears you out. And you don't have the same pop."
If Schiano thought Young might have been able to practice, is it really appropriate for a headline to speculate about missing the rest of the season? Intuitively, everyone remembers nagging football injuries that never quite go away, but that thinking is clouded by hindsight bias.
Tiquan Underwood and Courtney Greene made PFW's list of the top 100 senior NFL draft prospects.
Essence Carson and the NY Liberty are out of the WNBA playoffs.
Brandon Renkart is back on the Jets' practice squad.
The Pittsburgh Steelers blog Behind the Steel Curtain has some thoughts on Darnell Stapleton.
Anyway, this isn't Simmons anymore. He isn't coming back this year (he's on IR and out for the season) so let's instead keep the focus on 2nd year man Darnell Stapleton, who I wrote about just Friday, asking why we didn't put him in just to see what might happen. I had no idea his extensive playing time Monday would be the result of an injury, but once inserted, the Steelers proceeded to yield no more sacks. It would be disingenous to say the running game suddenly started to click, but I think we can all agree that the offense had better flow in the second half and that started with more stable play along the line. It should be noted that we went to the no-huddle in the second half when Stapleton was playing. What's that mean? He's familiar with the ins and outs of our various offensive packages, that's what, and that we won't have to alter our game plan one bit to account for his inexperience with the system.
All eyes will be on him this coming week against Jacksonville. Like we've said before, you never know how one minor change can alter everything. It's not likely this will be the case with Stapleton in the lineup, but it's a possibility, and for that reason alone, we can be excited.
The Wall Street journal ranked Rutgers's Executive MBA program at #19.
Scarlet Fever (the RU-themed apparel store in New Brunswick) relocated to a larger building over the summer.