Sunrise in the East: Injuries at Rutgers, Louisville

Posted by ESPN.com’s Brian Bennett

Here’s your morning rundown of what’s happening in the Big East:

* As camp winds down at Rutgers, the offensive line remains a question mark, Tom Luicci writes in The Star-Ledger. Starting left guard Kevin Haslam suffered a right ankle injury in Monday’s practice, and though the severity wasn’t immediately known, Haslam had to be helped off the field and was later seen on crutches. Haslam had surgery on the same ankle in April. At right guard, redshirt freshman Caleb Ruch has taken a tentative lead but still needs to show the coaching staff more in Wednesday’s scrimmage.

“Here’s the problem,” Luicci writes. “For now, walk-on Howard Barbieri is the backup at both guard spots, meaning a time-consuming injury to Haslam or less-than-stellar performance tomorrow by Ruch could throw the offensive line into a state of flux.

“That’s not a good thing for a unit that relies heavily on precision and timing — and now has 13 days before the opener to get its act together.”

* At Louisville, receiver Scott Long’s injury was diagnosed as a broken fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot, reports C.L. Brown in The Courier-Journal. Though school officials haven’t given a timetable for his return, Long will undergo surgery and almost surely will miss the opener against Kentucky and maybe more. The normal recovery time from a fifth metatarsal surgery is about four-to-six weeks, though athletes have come back more quickly from it.

* Meanwhile, Brown checks in with Louisville’s new defensive line coach Ken Delgado, who was hired away from Cal to fix a unit that saw its sacks total drop from 44 in 2006 to just 17 last year.

* At South Florida, the running back battle continues to get more interesting. Mike Ford was the team’s top tailback last year with 12 touchdowns, but he’s been running behind senior Ben Williams on the depth chart. The St. Petersburg Times’ Greg Auman notes that sophomore Richard Kelly, who has just one carry for one yard under his belt, has gotten into the mix as well.

“The running back position is still a very intense competition between four guys,” offensive coordinator Greg Gregory told Auman. “Kelly stood out in the scrimmage, and he stood out again (Monday) morning. Kelly has thrown himself right into the heat of the battle. He’s moved fast. He’s playing extremely well. Big body, hard to tackle. He’s pounding it. … We don’t know who No. 1 is yet.”

* Freshman Robert Sands is making his move toward possibly winning the starting free safety job at West Virginia, says Dave Hickman in the Charleston Gazette. Sands is unusually tall for a safety — he’s been listed at 6-foot-6 and is actually 6-foot-4 1/2. He’s battling redshirt freshman Eain Smith for the job and is coming on strong.

* Paul Zeise has a feature on Pitt receiver Oderick Turner in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Turner was the Panthers’ No. 1 wideout in the absence of Derek Kinder and is working hard to improve all facets of his game to keep that role. He had 36 catches last year, but expect that number to go up with the Pitt quarterback situation in much better shape than it was a year ago and Kinder back to occupy coverages.

* Brent Axe of the Syracuse Post-Standard has a video interview with Orange quarterback Andrew Robinson that gets better after the first question.

I’ll be stopping by Cincinnati practice later today.

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