STARKVILLE – Dan Mullen truly wishes he had better news about his quarterback’s injury situation.
The Bulldogs fifth-year coach said the report from his training staff isn’t any different than the day before with both sophomore Dak Prescott and senior Tyler Russell listed as “day-to-day”.
“I’ll let you be as frustrated as I get sometimes by giving you my trainers response that ‘everybody is day-to-day right now’,” Mullen said. “It’s kind of like the weather report isn’t it? There’s a 50 percent chance it’ll rain today.”
Senior quarterback Tyler Russell got his fifth straight start of the 2013 season and the Bulldogs fifth-year signal caller finished the 20-7 loss to No. 1 Alabama Saturday night 15 of 24 for 144 yards and one interception but was forced to leave the game with a reported shoulder injury late in the fourth quarter.
Prescott was ruled inactive by Mullen after suffering a severely pinched nerve in his left arm in the loss last week at Texas A&M. None of the quarterbacks were made available to the media Monday but Prescott was seen coming into the Seal Family Football Complex to get treatment on the players day off.
Mullen said Monday it’s situations like this week that make his staff glad they decided to get freshman Damian Williams action in September against Alcorn State and Troy.
“Sometimes you sit there and scratch your head, and wonder ‘boy would you like to play Damian at all this season’,” Mullen said. “At this point it’s looking like that was the right decision. I give him a lot of credit for us to say to him in that situation ‘go get it big guy’. The stage wasn’t too big for him.”
Williams, the former three-star product from Louisiana, finished 0 for 5 and was sacked once while leading the final two unsuccessful drives in the contest.
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema said his staff is preparing for all three quarterbacks as the Bulldogs (4-6, 1-5 in Southeastern Conference) travel to Little Rock this weekend (11:21 a.m., SEC Network) to play a struggling Arkansas (3-7, 0-6 in SEC) team.
“It could be anybody,” Bielema said Monday. “Whoever plays they are going to be good and they are going to execute. I don’t really know what to say other than whoever is back there, I don’t think the plan changes all that much in the execution of what we are going to do.
Mullen joked in his Monday media conference that “he had a pretty good night throwing the ball and loosening up” he was out at practice Sunday throwing passes with the depth being so slim at quarterback.
“They’re getting treatments today and we’ll see if they’ll get better but that’s all the information I have on the subject so far,” Mullen said.
Mullen clarifies Deontae Skinner injury situation: Mullen said senior linebacker Deontae Skinner was dressed for pre-game warmups but in the mind of MSU’s head coach that was a complete accident and a last desperate attempt by Skinner to play last Saturday night against Alabama.
The team doctors and training staff never medically cleared from after the pinched nerve injury in his neck he suffered before the game at Texas A&M. Mullen said he spoke with Skinner before the game Saturday to explain to him why would not be active to play.
“I looked at Deontae and said ‘(our trainers) don’t want you to play and told me he could play in the case of a emergency and I said ‘well, we’re playing Alabama, the whole game is pretty much a emergency for us’.”
Skinner has missed each of the last two games because of the stinger injury and MSU defensive coordinator Geoff Collins said the staff knew by last Tuesday that the senior linebacker wouldn’t be available. In place of Skinner, MSU has decided to move Christian Holmes back to his original position of linebacker from tight end.
Mullen said he tried to wrap the decision of letting Skinner play or not in the big picture concept of what he would want the player to do if he was their parent.
“Being a father, I told (Skinner) this is not my decision and you need to talk to the doctors and the trainers because they are the professionals,” Mullen said. “If it were me personally playing, I may make a poor decision with my personal health with my competitive nature. That’s why we have trainers there to make sure kids don’t do that.”
Skinner is still second on the team with 50 tackles and 34 hits on rushing plays in eight games this season.
“Deontae looked at me and said ‘Coach I want to play’ and I told him ‘hey I want you to play too but we’re talking about more important things here than that’,” Mullen said. “I think it was one of those that after (the trainers) told me that, I couldn’t imagine as a coach, that I would let him get on the field.”
Calhoun and Malcolm Johnson earn national honors: Taveze Calhoun and Malcolm Johnson earned a spot on the College Football Performance Awards honorable mention lists after the loss Saturday to No. 1 Alabama.
The honor is the first of the season for Calhoun while Johnson was named the CFPA National tight end of the week following the victory against Kentucky on Oct. 24.
Calhoun intercepted the first two passes of his career Saturday against the top-ranked Crimson Tide. He picked off AJ McCarron in the second and fourth quarters after McCarron had thrown just three interceptions all season leading into the contest. Calhoun, who became the first player to intercept a pair of Alabama passes in a game since Utah’s Robert Johnson on Jan. 2, 2009, returned the fourth-quarter pick 53 yards to the Alabama 38-yard line.
Follow Matt Stevens on Twitter @matthewcstevens.
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