A healthy Washington crucial for Bulldogs’ plans

Charles Washington got onto the football field in the spring for one practice, was feeling well enough coming back from surgery to repair a core muscle injury and so he went out and ran through drills and looked good and sharp. But late in there, the last rep, he said, he felt a pop and walking up the ramp and out of Bulldog Stadium that day, he didn’t look good, didn’t look happy.

He looked worried, and he was not the only one.

Moved to cornerback full-time after a 2014 season in which he started games at strong safety, right cornerback, nickel back and left cornerback, the senior was to be counted on to help stem a messy run of explosive pass plays allowed by the Bulldogs’ defense. There were 54 of them last year, 20 yards or more; 31 of 30 yards or more, the most in the Mountain West Conference.

But as coach Tim DeRuyter pointed out, when Washington took up permanent residence at corner the final five games of the season, the big plays on his side of the field decreased dramatically.

Five months removed from a second surgery, those plans haven’t changed. Washington admitted there have been summer workout days when he hasn’t felt right and others when he doesn’t feel any discomfort at all, but he is ready to start fall camp on Aug. 6 and just go.

“There’s no timetable anymore,” he said Tuesday at the conference media days. “My timetable was the summer. Camp, you have 30 days until the season and that’s what it is, there is no going out there and testing the waters. It’s go. Once I get out there, it’s let it go and see where it’s at from there.

“I know it’s there, but the more I think about it the more I’ll hold back. So once I go out there, I just have to let it go and if it happens, good; and if it doesn’t, I’ll just have to keep working at it.”

DeRuyter said the team could ease Washington back in once fall camp starts, the goal obviously to be healthy on Sept. 3 when the Bulldogs open against Abilene Christian and into a season the Bulldogs need to improve a defense that was ranked 10th of 12 in the conference in passing defense and ninth in scoring defense, giving up 254.1 yards and 32.8 points per game.

“Charles has played,” DeRuyter said. “I don’t worry about him understanding our schemes. We know what he can do. He obviously has to get in shape, and he should be in great shape going through Coach (Joey) Boese’s summer workouts, but just to get into that football shape of banging bodies. So we’ll probably initially take it a little easy on him depending on what (the trainers) say, but I anticipate he’ll be 100% by the time we get to Abilene Christian.”

Washington intends to be there — too much has been put into it already.

“I’m finally starting to come around. I’ve been doing all the summer workouts. I haven’t missed one summer workout and it feels good just to be out there and compete again,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of yoga to help that area, to strengthen that area. I got desperate to be healthy and I’ve been doing everything I can and I can’t wait for camp.

“It has been a long six months, seven months. I’m excited for the season. Camp is coming up and that’s the hardest time of the year, but it’s the best time of the year because you get a chance to grind through it with your teammates and then everything shows. If you stack up days during camp, you’ll have the best season. If you B.S. through camp, it will show on Sept. 3.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 8:11 PM with the headline "A healthy Washington crucial for Bulldogs’ plans."