BG FBall : Connor Bazelak Postpractice 2.29

uh how you feeling you know kind of take us through the last couple months uh since the bowl game yeah uh it's definitely been been crazy um I was able to get in uh with my surgeon early so uh I had surgery on beginning of January on my knee and um it's good I was able to get in early and kind of get that done and um looking forward to being back so but I was I was home for a while um and just got back up here a couple weeks ago and uh excited to be back with everyone and got a good got a good team is not being a part of spring practice I mean physically like being there on the field throwing does it really bother you or is it just because you've been in the system for a year now you kind of know what the deal is and you're not really sweating it that much uh yeah I'm not I'm not too worried about it it's kind of nice um being on the side just kind of being a leader for everyone uh taking mental reps um help helping ution out uh all the new receivers everyone so it's it's good what kind of words of advice are you giving him during the drills uh yeah I think just kind of things that I would go through my mind myself um you know just giving them helping them out with anything I mean uh reads footwork uh defenses stuff like that what's it like trying to connect with the new wide receivers guys that you haven't thrown to before yeah they're great um obviously that's going to be something that'll that'll come once I get back thrown and everything uh I'm not too worried about it they're they're they look really good uh excited to have them and I think it should be should be an easy transition uh to get the timing back with them and um going to have to make sure spend a lot of time doing that what was ask what this uh surgery was specifically that you had um so I had uh I like a cartilage defect uh so it's called an osteochondral allograft um bonus points for memory so so they uh they went in and and took some cartilage from a caver and and kind of uh made a graft plug and and put it in the defect so um I was non weight bearing for 6 weeks on crutches and I'm back now and had a schedule so uh I'm hoping to be back back for June and uh ready to go by June so do you ever think like how to like I played the entire year last year cuz obviously injured most of the year last year yeah so this was something um that I think kind of kind of gradually over time uh wore down and in something that maybe was caused from my previous ACL injury uh back at missou um but I did have uh a decent bone bruise in the Eastern Illinois game um that kind of made it worse and then I just played on it the the rest of the year and um took some meds took some meds before games um just did my best I could out there so yeah couple players injured on this team especially towards that end half of the Season what does the collective feel of having an entire healthy Falcon group get ready for the next season yeah it's it's kind of I'm hoping we get the injuries out now and you know the surgeries and everything out now and then everyone's back by summer everyone's healthy ready to go and um and we got a we got a decent sized group over over with our strength coach with the injured group um but it's I think it's kind of a time to you know get stronger uh rehab your your injury and um kind of build up like your leadership on the team too we've got a lot of leaders too that that have had surgery and um it's good for for us and those guys to kind of build relationships with with the new guys a lot of new guys and uh just kind of build as Leaders how important is that you know some of these guys you guys brought in you know obviously RJ wide receiver he won a big 12 title at Kansas State CJ Brown on defense won a Mac title at NIU how important as you guys obviously aim to win a m Championship this year that you guys now have guys that know what it takes to win a league championship yeah I think it's really important especially at at Big positions like receiver and safety um those guys can be leaders and uh they know what it takes to win a championship uh a lot of a lot of the guys on our team don't including myself um so they know what it takes they know the the work and preparation it takes to go into that um I think right now for them it's just you know learning The Playbook uh getting to know guys and and you know I think come summer they'll they'll be they'll be great leaders for us