Our guys at 110% - 100% of the time.
A little trash talk between Rey Maualuga and Patrick Turner prior to practice yesterday set up a pretty nasty hit by Maualuga on Turner when Turner went across the middle on a pass play. Turner never saw it coming but he felt it and the result was a stinger to the shoulder.
"That was a vicious hit," Coach Pete Carroll said.
Turner said his left arm went numb after the collision and that he suspected he sustained a "stinger." He said he did not see but could hear the collision, and that it sounded like "thunder" in his helmet.
Maualuga apologized to Turner but said the collision was almost predictable.
"Before practice, he was like, 'I'm going to [Randy] Moss you, Rey. I'm going to Moss you,' like catch a ball over me and like beat me downfield like in a footrace," Maualuga said.
"I'm like, 'Your helmet is going to come off, your helmet is going to come off.' Swear to God, those were the exact words coming in. For some reason, it was like, boom, he was there, I was there. It just happened."
To me this reinforces the level of competition that makes SC the place to be. I'm not happy that guys are getting tagged like that before the season opener, but that is the atmosphere were have at SC.
Spanos getting injured is not a good thing either as he will have to anchor the O line and this will move some things around and that is not something that we need to be doing at this time of the season. I realize that its only Idaho but we do need to keep our eyes on the Nebraska game as that will really set the tone for the season.
Left guard Jeff Byers would start in place of Spanos if he were unable to play against Idaho, Carroll said.
Alatini Malu, Drew Radovich or Zack Heberer could play left guard in Byers' place.
That's a little too much shuffling going on for my tastes. Lets hope everyone is healthy for Saturday.
Update [2007-8-30 0:14:43 by Paragon SC]:
Not Good.