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Player Updates from the Russell Athletic Bowl Presser

We're finding out a few things about a few things.

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Since the regular season ended about a day ago, and in many cases even before, I've gotten about a million questions regarding the potential return of Jarrett Stidham, Baylor's uberfreshman QB.  People are understandably concerned about whether he'll be able to lead Baylor into the bowl game, particularly since Chris Johnson is now also banged up and the offense has looked less than stellar the last few games (for a lot of reasons not related specifically to Johnson).

Today, in the Russell Athletic Bowl press conference, Briles gave us something of an answer, or at least a timeline for an answer:

As it turns out, Briles actually said "scan" here, not graph or "graft."  Next Monday, Stidham will have a CT scan on the bone to determined level of healing.  Currently, he is in a walking boot and on crutches, and they're waiting for that scan in 8 days to find out how far along things are.  That means that if you read nothing else, take away from this that we should know something a week from tomorrow.  The elder Smoak continued:

As I mentioned, next Monday is the day we should know definitively whether Stidham can't play.  We might have to wait a little longer to know whether he can based on his progression in practice coming off the injury. Also from Briles.

I'm sure Briles is attempting to temper expectations somewhat considering Stidham will have missed about 4 weeks of practice, at least.

Something tells me he'll be up to the task, though.

The other piece of important news came from Andrew Billings, Baylor's junior DT, whose return could mean the difference between a stout defense in 2016 and once missing the entire DL from the year before. For that, we return to Smoak the Younger:

Not a lot of new info here; I think this is what most people expected.

But this is interesting.  Will it take a first-round grade for Billings to leave, or will it have to be in the top half or better?  That's the important question.  And unfortunately, it's a question we don't really have an answer to right now.  But at least we know that in the unlikely event Billings doesn't get that first-round grade, he'll be back in the middle next year.