Auburn football has several players that hope to take care of nagging injuries before the season kicks off on Sept. 2 against UMass.
Among those injured is USF transfer [autotag]Brian Battie[/autotag].
According to a report by Richard Silva of The Montgomery Advertiser, Battie elected to have surgery in April to repair a broken sesamoid bone in his right foot. His recovery was expected to take four months, is he on track? Head coach [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] provided an update earlier this week.
“He’s going to suck it up and go,” Freeze said Tuesday. “I wish I felt a little better about his surgery, and maybe I’m just pushing it. I want it faster than what is coming.”
Freeze admitted that he was not sure how he would use Battie this season, but that his mind quickly changed after a successful spring practice.
“When we took him, truthfully, I was like, ‘Man, this guy is too small to play in this league and run inside the tackles, but he’s going to really help us in the return game and he’s going to really help us on some special designed outside runs,” Freeze said. “Then we get into practice and we start running inside zone with him and the guy is wiggling through holes and falling forward, so I got really, really excited about him, and I think he’s going to add great value to us.”
Battie rushed for 1,185 yards and eight touchdowns last season at USF and accounted for 659 return yards. Battie is expected to join a solid rushing attack alongside [autotag]Jarquez Hunter[/autotag] and [autotag]Damari Alston[/autotag].
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