Michigan TE Colston Loveland's status in doubt, but 'if there's a guy that we're gonna let roll, man, it'd be him'
Michigan Wolverines football junior tight end Colston Loveland left last weekend’s 28-18 win over Arkansas State with an apparent left arm injury, after hauling in 3 receptions for 30 yards. Head coach Sherrone Moore said Monday that his prognosis wasn’t as bad as originally thought, but his status for Saturday’s Big Ten opener against USC remains in doubt.
Tight ends coach Steve Casula didn’t go into specifics when asked if Loveland — who leads all tight ends nationally with 19 catches — has been practicing so far this week.
“Everybody in our program that’s not dealing with a season-ending injury or an upper-body, head injury of some sort, they practice every day,” Casula said. “So that could look a lot of different ways for a lot of different players, whether they’re dealing with an injury or not. But everyone on our team that isn’t out for the season or possibly dealing with a concussion or something like that, yeah, they practice every single day.”
Casula went on to echo Moore in saying he’s not going to predict the “availability” of Michigan players for upcoming games “relative to their health.”
“We’re just taking it one minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time,” Casula continued. “3:30 Saturday is still a ways away. You look at it like that. So I try to avoid predicting someone’s availability.”
How many practice reps Loveland gets throughout the course of this week may not be the end-all, be-all in terms of his chances to play, though. Casula was asked how comfortable he would be putting the Michigan star in the game even if he is limited in practice.
“That’s always something that you’d work in conjunction with Coach Moore and the training staff with,” Casula said. “I know our program in general is forthright about making sure a guy is available to play and never in harm’s way, so to speak.
“If there’s a guy that we’re gonna let roll, man, it’d be him. He’s played a lot of football for us. His understanding of the offense, his recall, his retention from meetings … The way college football functions, there are things that we’ve asked Colston to do in a game this year that maybe he didn’t get that exact look at or that exact rep of, and you wouldn’t be surprised to know, if you know Cole, they’ve gone really well.
“But at the same time, not at a disservice to him, not at a disservice to us, by any means. But he’s a sharp guy who’s really gifted and has played a lot of football and really understands the offense, really watches a ton of film. He could sit here and talk to you about his opinions of USC’s defense and the coverages they play.
“I was just walking out of my office, and he just looked at me and he said, ‘Man, they play X, Y or Z in this area of the field a lot, huh?’ You’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ So he’s on top of it. He’s a sharp guy.”
Michigan saw multiple tight ends step up in Loveland’s absence against the Red Wolves. Junior Marlin Klein had 3 catches for a career-high 43 yards, while freshman Hogan Hansen saw his first career catch be a 9-yard touchdown. Senior Max Bredeson has also been heavily involved as a fullback / h-back.
“To play tight end here, you gotta be able to do all the different things that we ask them to do,” Casula said. “Now, with any game plan, with any game week, it’s our responsibility as coaches to put our players in the best positions to succeed.
“But we feel that we’ve got quite a number of guys in the room that … Cole can do what Marlin’s asked to do, Marlin can do what Cole’s asked to do. I don’t know if anybody can do what Breddy’s asked to do — [sophomore] Jalen Hoffman is on his way, for sure. [Sophomore] Zack Marshall, Hogan Hansen, it’s a long list of guys that can kinda mimic one another.”
