2013 COLLEGE TOUR
Surgery didn’t repair the giant chip on Ole Miss quarterback’s shoulder.
While Freeze didn’t let Wallace off the hook — “Bo knows he has to take better care of the ball,” Freeze said repeatedly last season all the way through this preseason — he also admired Wallace’s grit to never miss a game.
“There were some games, like against LSU, that I didn’t know how long Bo would last,” Freeze said.
Almost every Saturday, Ole Miss receivers never knew from series to series whether Wallace’s passes would flutter and die incomplete, or whether they would be on the money with plenty of zip.
Imagine how maddening it was for Freeze and offensive coordinator Dan Werner when they were calling plays.
“Bo’s arm was such a wreck that sometimes balls just didn’t come out good, especially deeper throws,” Werner said. “I’d ask Bo how his arm felt, he’d always lie and say it was fine. He didn’t want to come out of games. Then when we started playing well and he started playing fairly well, we kept him there.”
After the season, Wallace viewed a tape of all the interceptions he threw. He and Werner determined at least five of the 17 were because of the aching shoulder, with the rest due to poor decisions.
“Whether I was hurt or not, I could have had a better year if I had made better decisions,” Wallace said. “When I couldn’t do anything the first few months after my surgery, all I did was look at film of me to become a better student of the game.”
When it comes to running, Wallace is still expected to be a vital part of the Rebels’ zone read plays when he reads the onrushing defense and decides whether to hand off or keep the ball. So more than ever, Wallace has to be savvy enough to realize when to hold ’em and fold ’em.
It’s something he discussed with former Rebs’ star Eli Manning when the New York Giants QB was back in his offseason Oxford home for a few months.
“We both agreed how awkward it is to slide when you’re running with football speed and a defender is coming at you,” Wallace said. “I know I have to pick my spots when to run. I don’t want to suffer through another injury like this, and I help my team more being healthy. But that’s not going to stop me from competing my tail off.
Wallace’s competitive spirit and work ethic have never been debated by teammates such as wide receiver Donte Moncrief.
“There wasn’t a day that went by this summer that Bo wasn’t doing extra work,” Moncrief said. “I think he’s throwing the ball harder than ever.”
The Rebels have been careful in Wallace’s rehab, not rushing him to throw too soon, and then making sure he didn’t throw too much. The first step early this summer was Werner receiving permission from the NCAA to coach Wallace on relearning his mechanics. The Rebels needed the exception, because the NCAA doesn’t allow coaches to have contact with their players during the summer.
Throughout preseason, Werner has been clocking Wallace’s throws with a radar gun. Any day-to-day drop in velocity from Wallace’s top speed of 50 miles per hour meant a reduction in Wallace’s passing workload, but Werner said Thursday that hasn’t been the case.
“The last 10 days or so, we haven’t backed off and Bo has gone through full practices,” Werner said. “He hasn’t had to stop throwing. He’s at 50 miles per hour now.”