It’s questionable at this point whether Colorado redshirt freshman Ray Polk will be able to earn any significant playing time next fall on defense.
Polk, a highly rated recruit at running back in 2008, sat out last season and decided to make the switch to safety during the winter. He also needed a pair of shoulder surgeries in the offseason and the rehabilitation has rob him of spring ball when he would have received valuable reps and a real head start on learning his new position.
During each practice, Polk spends plenty of time with veteran members of the secondary, with defensive backs coach Greg Brown and with defensive technical intern Ashley Ambrose in an effort to learn calls and understand what his responsibilities would be if he was able to be on the field.
Polk said he knows three of the four coverages that have been installed pretty well at this point, but it’s a far cry from where he will need to be to take any playing time away from guys like starting safeties Anthony Perkins and Patrick Mahnke, both of whom are sophomores.
“I’m getting it down,” Polk said. “So far, I’m at 75 percent.”
Brown said Polk has all the tools and the work ethic to be an excellent safety in the future, but he is unsure whether four weeks of practice time in fall camp will be enough to prepare Polk to play at a high level on defense. He’s not ruling out the possibility.
Special teams might be the most likely area in which Polk makes an impact early. Brown doesn’t really have to push Polk too fast because he is blessed with a deep pool of talent in the secondary. If Jimmy Smith and Cha’pelle Brown start at corners and Perkins and Mahnke are the safeties, that still leaves Greg Brown with players such as Ben Burney, Jalil Brown, Travis Sandersfeld, Vince Ewing, Jonathan Hawkins and possibly Anthony Wright among others.
As coach Dan Hawkins said after one practice this week. “It’s nice to have some log jams.”
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Earn your way back, Simas. Come back to the team a smarter, bigger, humbler man.
Agreed. Simas, from what I saw last year you have the chance to be a terrific player. Don't let this setback ruin your career. Learn from your mistakes, admit the problem, and work to overcome it. We need you in black and gold next year!
someone help me with this one……..simas may get to come back after all his "incidents" yet sumler was denied his last semester of scholarship cause he needed to pursue his master's somewhere else and leave cu—he always appeared to play by the rules. he just wanted to finish his undergraduate work at cu. where am i missing something?
i agree simas did well last year..but what about hawkin's comment saying "once is a mistake and twice is behavior"…conistency deems to be a problem for hawk, on and off….. .
sumler had a football scholarship… quit the team, yank the scholarship and use it for somebody else. makes sense to me. he can apply for other scholarships down the road like everybody else (read: non-football player).
true, however he could have just waited to let hawk know, til may……but instead he was courteous enough to let hawk know so it would benefit recruiting. imho…i might be way off. but, sumler could have finished spring semester and then told hawk…probably sumler's error…i really don't have all the facts at all…just a very outside thought