Shane Buechele Named Starter Against Baylor

[Daniel Seahorn]

The official word was handed down today from Tom Herman that Buechele will indeed start against Baylor in Waco. 

No shocker here, as Sam Ehlinger has not practiced all week. 

 

[DMAC]

Shane and Sam halfway through the season....

 

[83Dee]

Does the NCAA have a unified concussion protocol, or is it up to each team? 

I'm sure this has been discussed.... but is it possible that Sam never fully recovered from the injury against OU?   

 

[DMAC]

Quick Hitters | Pre-Baylor Tom Herman Thursday Press Conference

– Shane Buechele has been named the starting QB vs Baylor.

– WR/PR Reggie Hemphill-Mapps will return for and play in the Baylor game Saturday.

– Sam Ehlinger and Zach Shackelford are still day-to-day after being in concussion protocol.

– Terrell Cuney will start at Center and Jake McMillon will start at RG

– Tom Herman says he doesn’t want Shane to scramble too much but know he will need to scramble from time to time. Believes he can do so.

– Tim Beck said he felt the offense was pressing in yesterday’s press conference. Tom Herman says that the coaches and players have been talking a lot about this, “We know our intentions are good… We just have to settle down a bit and take a deep break. I think that’s where I can help. We’ve faced adversity with not a ton of leadership… When faced with adversity the human reaction is to work harder, and that’s not always the right thing to do. It’s not try harder, it’s try smarter… We’ve addressed it. I’ve told them you have a perfect example to lean on when you look at the other side of he ball. In our first game the defense was to blame. They came out the next week and made a conscious decision to come out next week and not worry about it. Play without hesitation… if you need an example of what and how to do it, it’s in the other meeting room.”

– Tom Herman says that the relationship between the offense and defense has been “one of the highlights for me thus far this year, how together this team is.”

http://texas.thefootballbrainiacs.com/2017/10/quick-hitters-pre-baylor-tom-herman-press-conference/

 

[The Bry-Man81]

Does the NCAA have a unified concussion protocol, or is it up to each team? 

I'm sure this has been discussed.... but is it possible that Sam never fully recovered from the injury against OU?   

Here are my thoughts that i posted in another thread. Basically, that's a definite possibility, but it's not for certain.

The problem is that sometimes, symptoms do not always show up right away and they're not always the same across each person. One person might have mild amnesia and confusion, balance issues, "got his bell rung" type symptoms where another might have headaches and problems focusing, etc. It's very possible that during OU, he wasn't having symptoms immediately after the hit and was cleared to go back in, and then started to develop symptoms later during the week.  If they're mild symptoms, maybe he doesn't think much of it, doesn't report them, or maybe he tries to tough it out because that's the kind of player that Sam seems to be. Maybe this concussion is lingering from OU, maybe it got exacerbated during OSU, or maybe he never had a concussion and this is in fact truly entirely from the OSU game. I'm completely speculating and it's impossible to know. That being said, it's not impossible that he suffered a concussion during OU and was symptom free in the immediate aftermath, hence being cleared to go into the game.

To answer your other question, the NCAA has concussion recognition, management and return to play guidelines

http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/concussion-diagnosis-and-management-best-practices

Here's the return to play section, which is a protocol that can be started when athlete is at baseline (symptom free):

1. Light aerobic exercise such as walking, swimming or riding a stationary bike.  No resistance training.  If asymptomatic with light aerobic exercise, then;
   
2. Sport-specific activity with no head impact.  If asymptomatic with sport-specific activity, then;
   
3. Non-contact sport drills and resumption of progressive resistance training.  If asymptomatic with non-contact drills and resistance training, then;
   
4. Unrestricted training.  If asymptomatic with unrestricted training, then;
   
5. Return-to-competition.  Medical clearance will be determined by the team physician/physician designee, or athletic trainer in consultation with a team physician.
   

At any point, if the student-athlete becomes symptomatic (i.e., more symptomatic than baseline), or scores on clinical/cognitive measures decline, the team physician should be notified and the student-athlete should be returned to the previous level of activity.  Final determination of return-to-play ultimately resides with the team physician/physician designee.

 

[Epictetus]

I have a lot of confidence in Shane now. From what I just read, the offense may come out Fast Eddy Nelson... "fast & loose."

 

[RickyFlair]

Does the NCAA have a unified concussion protocol, or is it up to each team? 

I'm sure this has been discussed.... but is it possible that Sam never fully recovered from the injury against OU?   

I shared this after the OU game. I was told,by someone who would know and close enough to see first hand, that there was no doubt in their mind Sam got a concussion during the OU game.