Football's Ryan still healing

The bite of the injury bug hasn't quite healed for Kris Ryan. The Penn running back, who missed three games and was hampered in several others last season due to two separate leg injuries, was a late-arriver to the playing field on Wednesday. Ryan was getting his knee iced in the trainer's room and did not practice. But no need to worry, Penn fans. Ryan's injury is not serious, and the Quakers junior said on Wednesday that he will be back for Penn's annual spring intrasquad game tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. at Franklin Field. "We always err being conservative, injury-wise," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "If we have a kid who is marginally banged up, if this was the season, we probably would have him practice and play." Ryan has a recent history of leg injuries. He missed the first two games of last season with a high ankle sprain. And against Columbia in his third game back, Ryan turned his knee and missed another game. Ryan suffered that ankle sprain in preseason last fall, so Bagnoli has been extra careful this spring with his star halfback. "We've been really cutting back on [Ryan's] reps," Bagnoli said. "He's been involved in all of the practices, but we really haven't asked him to carry the ball an exceptional amount of times." And Ryan is fine with that. "In the spring, the pressure is not there," Ryan said. "If health comes into question, it's not a question of getting back." After a stellar sophomore season in which he rushed for 1,197 yards on 214 carries and scored 14 touchdowns, Ryan's numbers were notably down last year -- just 662 yards on 129 carries and eight touchdowns. His yards per carry went from 5.6 to 5.1 and he caught only three passes. But those drops in numbers were partly due to injury, and a healthier-but-not-quite-full-strength Ryan did end last season in a flurry. He gained 243 yards and scored four times in Penn's Ivy-title-clinching bashing of Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Ryan, with 1,877 career rushing yards, now sits perched on the edge of his last year at Penn. And Saturday's game -- a game that is the culmination of an annual two-week, 12-practice spring session for the Penn football team -- will mark Ryan's last spring practice. The next time Ryan officially works out on Franklin Field, it will be August, and he will be a senior, hoping he can lead Penn to its second consecutive Ivy title. "Everybody is excited about their senior year," Ryan said. "And I'm just praying that I stay healthy and am able to enjoy the whole thing, because we have a pretty good team coming back."

Daily Pennsylvanian sports writer Andrew McLaughlin contributed to this article.

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