Denard Played through Staph Infection

Don't quote me on this but I think it's www.freep.com/iluvrosey

It's Andy Bernard, who refers to himself as the Nard dog sometimes.

nard dog!

D - 'Nard Dawg!

He was in an a cappella group at Cornell called Here Comes Treble.

saying someone has a staph infection is similar to saying they got into a car accident. it could be a fender bender or their car could be totaled. a staph infection can range from a small pimple that your immune system takes care of before you notice it to an infection that continues to spread through skin, soft tissue and potentially into the blood, requiring hospitalization. it seems clear that his infection was on his forearm or elbow and was significant enough to require treatment.  it's also surprising how a small degree of inflammation in the correct spot can be extremely painful, especially an area like his arm that is exposed to a lot of contact and movement. it's all pure speculation, but i could imagine an abcess close to his elbow causing enough discomfort to affect his throwing, especially since it was sizable enough and/or persisted long enough to require treatment.  

See, Steve Everitt played with a broken jaw, but it didn't hurt. Pain doesn't come to Steve Everitt. It hides from him, trembling in the dark.

Seriously... afflictions of the human body don't get anywhere near that much badass.

I don't think we'll ever be sure how much it affected him at any given point. I'm sure it didn't HELP... but did it hurt his performance more than the transition to a new system? Or the feeling-out period with Borges?

The world... may never know.

Well, Kyle Meinke has a new annarbor.com article that indicates the staph infection was serious enough that he had to be hospitalized for one night, so maybe this does explain his early-season performance:

While the world criticized Denard Robinson for his declining accuracy and growing inconsistency, he had a secret.

The Michigan football team's star quarterback was suffering from a staph infection on his right arm -- his throwing arm.

It was serious, too. Serious enough, he landed in the hospital for a night.

He nearly missed a game.

. . .

Robinson said the infection bothered him for two or three weeks, and there was a concern at one point whether he'd even be able to take snaps in practice.

"There were times I couldn't take some, but I was OK," Robinson said. "(Center David) Molk eased the snap into my hands. I mean, he's one of the best centers in the country." 

Remember he wore that cream colored pad on his arm?

And it definitely a pad...not a sleeve like Hemingway wears.

It was also around the time Devin was playing a lot and Speilman and Urban Meyer were going nuts from the booth.

Robinson was so secretive about the injury that junior safety Jordan Kovacs had no idea about the injury until he was told by the media Friday afternoon. Senior defensive tackle Mike Martin knew about Robinson's infection but not about his hospitalization. It was the first of a multitude of injuries for Robinson this season, including injuries to his hand, wrist and another previously undisclosed abdominal injury. All of this left him fighting through injuries throughout the season. "There was a lot going on, but we had to fight through it," Robinson said. "We just had to keep fighting."