You’re going to have to wait a little longer to see Wan’Dale Robinson on the field inside Memorial Stadium. The marquee freshman will not play in Saturday’s spring game.
He and a number of other high-profile Huskers are being either held out of the annual scrimmage altogether or will see limited action, head coach Scott Frost said Wednesday when he met with the media.
(Robinson is dealing with a hamstring strain, especially disappointing for him considering his family was planning to travel from Kentucky for the game.)
“There's a few that had surgery that have been limited all spring,” Frost said. “We have a couple little minor injuries. Certain other guys that we're going to play for about a half. As a head coach, I want to see a great spring game and see guys perform but we still have to get out of it healthy. That's your biggest goal as a coach when you get to the spring game. There are some that won't play at all and some that will play half the game."
Sophomore Maurice Washington is another who won’t play at all. Washington was not at practice Wednesday; instead, he’s back in California dealing with an ongoing legal case.
“I've been coaching the team so this isn't news to us,” Frost said. “We knew this whole process would have to play out and like I said before, we're going to wait until everything happens to make any lasting decisions for Maurice.”
Frost has been content with the way Washington is handling his business in Lincoln, though.
“He's been doing well,” Frost said. “I'm pleased to report our team in the spring had the highest GPA since we've been keeping track of it as a football team. We've had over a 3.0 GPA as a team. He was part of that. He's been doing well in school. There are a lot of guys that deserve credit for that. Overall, I think Maurice has done a good job trying to stick to the norm and what practice he has done, he's looked good. We're just going to sit back and let the process play out."
Freshman linebacker Nick Henrich will also be held out. He’s set to have surgery on a shoulder injury. Frost said he expects Henrich to be ready to go for the start of the season, but it “depends on his recovery and when we'll be able to get him up and running again."
Henrich’s high school teammate at Burke, tight end Chris Hickman, won’t play, though that comes as no surprise as Hickman hasn’t practiced at all during the spring.
Inside linebacker coach Barrett Ruud also said junior linebacker Will Honas hasn’t taken contact during spring practice as he recovers from a torn ACL last year. Frost didn’t explicitly mention Honas, though.
Finally, offensive coordinator Troy Walters said Monday that JD Spielman remains a maybe for the spring game. Frost didn’t mention the junior wideout, but Spielman didn’t practice Wednesday.
Derek is a newbie on the Hail Varsity staff covering Husker athletics. In college, he was best known as ‘that guy from Twitter.’ He has covered a Sugar Bowl, a tennis national championship and almost everything in between (except an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game… *tears*). In his spare time, he can be found arguing with literally anyone about sports.
