During an appearance on the popular sports podcast ‘Wake Up Barstool’ on Wednesday, Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz gave his most detailed update on Ahmad Hardy’s current injury status in multiple weeks.
The update, however, is that Hardy’s potential return date is still very much an unknown.
The head coach said that he doesn’t “really have a timetable yet,” and that he’s hopeful the All-American running back will return “sooner than later.”
Added Drinkwitz during the podcast: “The biggest thing for us is just trying to get Ahmad back healthy and putting him out there in a position to be successful. And you can’t rush it, you know? I mean, he’s like a thoroughbred. Unless his gait is exactly the way it needs to be, you can’t put him in a bad position, so we’re taking it day by day, step by step.”
During his weekly press conference Tuesday, Drinkwitz was asked by local media if he had an update on Hardy’s status.
The seventh-year head coach gave a much shorter response to the media in attendance in Columbia.
“I mean, no, nothing,” Drinkwitz said. “Still rehabbing.”
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Hardy was shot in the upper leg while attending a concert in may in Laurel, Mississippi. The bullet hit Hardy’s femur and he required surgery, but Drinkwitz said the bone has made a full recovery.
The junior was not spotted as an active participant in any of the portions of Mizzou’s fall camp that were opened to the media for observation. The head coach said Aug. 22 that he needs to see Hardy practice for two full weeks before he considers playing him in a game.
Hardy, who broke MU’s single-season rushing record with 1,649 rushing yards and was a finalist for the Doak Walker Award, will not play against Troy this coming Saturday. It’s highly unlikely, given Drinkwitz’s practice requirements, that he will be available for MU’s trip to open SEC play against Mississippi State on Sept. 26 in Starkville, Mississippi.
Bruce Feldman at The Athletic recently reported that there is optimism for a mid-October return for Hardy.
That does seem to be incredibly tentative, however. Before the start of the season, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that the team was targeting a mid-September return date for Hardy. That date is about to pass, and Hardy is not likely to be back on the field this month.
“He’s incredibly frustrated, and I think that’s been the hardest thing on me is watching — he’s extremely competitive, and football is what matters to him most. I think his son and football are the two things that he lives for,” Drinkwitz said on Wake Up Barstool. “To have football be on the shelf right now has been really difficult for him, but he’s working every day to get back.”
For now, Missouri will continue to roll out Jamal Roberts as its lead running back and Xai’Shaun Edwards as the primary backup. Both players scored touchdowns in MU’s 38-21 win over Kansas this past Friday.
The Tigers‘ running back depth took a hit after Week 1, when Malae Fonoti — a Montana transfer who was the first player off the bench for Roberts — sustained a non-contact ACL tear and subsequently was ruled out for the remainder of the year.
“Obviously, the way that our quarterback throws the ball and the receivers and the tight end group that we have, adding another running back for us would be huge, especially a running back with the caliber of Ahmad Hardy,” Drinkwitz said on the podcast. “Jamal’s doing a great job but, obviously, having a two-headed monster right there would be big.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: ‘You can’t rush it’: Eli Drinkwitz gives Ahmad Hardy injury update in podcast appearance
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