It’s been a rough week or two for Oregon football.
 
Injuries. LeGarrette Blount. More injuries.
 
Jeremiah Masoli: knee. Walter Thurmond III: knee. T.J. Ward: ankle. Kenjon Barner: concussion. Willie Glasper: knee. C.E. Kaiser: shin.
 
The list of banged up players is seriously a mile long and with the additional distraction of what transpired last Friday with the “Blount Saga,” the circus has come to town.
 
We can’t go a day without another little nugget coming out.
I read over the weekend on ESPN.com that Blount had some sort of legal counsel helping him out soon after Sept. 3. That’s disappointing to hear, because for a while I thought he was truly sorry for what he did and that he would take his punishment and own up to his actions.
 
To an extent he has, but when things like lawyers enter the equation, things become much more murky. Maybe Blount is just trying to make sure he gets a fair deal, but for punching someone like he did and the following altercations, he should realize that he doesn’t have much ground to stand on. He’s the one to blame and he should just accept whatever punishment comes down and live with it.
 
All right, now on to the injuries.
 
This can get serious really fast for the Ducks. I cannot believe how many injuries (especially dealing with knees) Oregon has suffered.
Head coach Chip Kelly has become a little bit more curt and short when talking (or not
talking in this case) about injuries.
 
Tuesday in practice, Kelly said that he was done talking about injuries. Period. Everyone is “day-to-day” in his book. I have no doubt in my mind that Kelly would tell reporters with a straight face that LaMichael James was “day-to-day,” even if he just had his right foot amputated.
 
That’s why there is some confusion now as to how serious a few injuries really are. Ward, who has been out since spraining his ankle against Boise State a month ago, has yet to even suit up for a full-contact practice. Each week he has been, yup, you guessed it, day-to-day. But since that first week, his status has remained the same.
 
This week has been the most promising in terms of him possibly playing, however. Ward did say that was going to try to practice today, but he wasn’t even running on Tuesday at practice for the hour and a half I watched.
 
As for Masoli, good luck really finding out what happened to his right knee against Washington State. Nate Costa said that he will start against UCLA on Saturday, but Masoli is, again, day-to-day, despite rumors swirling around that he sprained (or maybe even fully tore) his MCL. All I know is that he was in a brace Tuesday, he wasn’t bending his knee, and he didn’t practice for the second straight day.
 
I do want to put in a disclaimer now before I go on: I respect the players on the football team immensely.
 
I’ve gotten to know a few very well through our interviews, and Masoli has been a really nice guy when we’ve talked. They’re human beings, so they have feelings too, and so it’s totally understandable from their standpoint about not wanting too much personal information out there about what’s wrong.
 
That being said, I really think the public has a right to know the outlook for their team. Is Masoli going to be back soon? Even a rough timeframe is better than saying day-to-day. How the team handled the Thurmond injury is more in line with what I’m thinking. Be proactive about it and get out ahead of all the questions. That way we can move on and ask more important questions rather than bugging coaches and players with an injury update.
 
The same goes for Kelly’s injury policy of saying the body part that is hurt but that’s it. There are some pretty funny quotes on my recorder of Kelly saying things like, “Ward has an ankle,” and things such as that.
 
Really? I’m glad the UO is recruiting guys with ankles. What a relief.
 
There should be a higher level of transparency. And don’t feed me some line about it being about keeping the information from the opposing team; any one of the healthy football players who are going to play will tell you it sucks that the guys are hurt, but there’s still a football game to be played and no matter who is in the game, they’ll try their hardest. It’s about who’s the best on the field Saturday.
 
To wrap this all up, I would just like to wish the best to the guys who are on the injury report because it sucks to see someone who has worked hard all season get knocked out.
 
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