Eli Drinkwitz not putting a timeline on Ahmad Hardy’s return
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Mizzou running back Ahmad Hardy has returned to practice, but the timeline for when he'll return to game-action is still up in the air.
During Tuesday's weekly meeting with local media members, head coach Eli Drinkwitz said that Hardy put his a practice with the team in the books on Monday and now they're looking to see how his body responds. It's going to be a one-day-at-a-time kind of process, as the team isn't putting a timetable on the All-American running back's return to the field.
In the past, Coach Eli has said that Hardy would need a full two-week ramp up period before returning to games, but that will all depend on how the junior's body responds.
"We've always felt like that he would need two weeks of being back into football, you know, practices and shape to figure everything out. I really don't have a timeline," Drinkwitz said. "There's never been anybody that we've experienced have to go through this and so for me to put an artificial timeline on that creates an expectation and then disappointment to you and the fans and everybody else, because he can't meet something that he has no control over or I have no control over. We're really just going based off he practiced yesterday and everything went good. But, it's really going to be about how does he feel today because we don't know if he can do it back-to-back practices. And then how does that translate into tomorrow, so there's no timeline on if this, then this, then this. It's hey, we'll see how today goes and then we'll figure out what tomorrow looks like and go from there. So, I don't know if he'll be back for Arkansas, I don't know if he'll be back for Texas, I don't know if you're back for the bowl game. Nobody knows."
The leader of the Tigers was asked what he needs to see from Hardy in practice to know that he is game-ready.
"The ability to sustain competitive success, you know, over the course of time. Can his body respond? Can he protect himself? Can he get to full speed? I mean, there's a lot there, it's a lot more challenging than I think maybe a hamstring injury or an ACL injury or something like that. The invasive nature of the recovery, based off of the bullet entry and the surgery that occurred. There's a lot of things there that have to go right continuously for him to be able to...return to play football at a high level. So you're having to monitor all that from the bone healing to the wound to how does this body respond to having a rod placed into his femur? Like, there's a lot of different things there that, you know, there's not an X-ray that tells you how he's ready to go," Drinkwitz said.
Although fans are still anticipating Hardy's return to action, his teammates were clearly excited to get back on the field with him, again.
"It was great having him back at practice yesterday. Honestly, it's actually pretty wild seeing him for the first time in a while, going out there, doing his job and seeing him make those cuts like he used to back in the day and just go out there. He was really excited," quarterback Austin Simmons said. "He did a little Tiger Jacks at the beginning of practice, and you could tell how excited he was."
