FORT COLLINS — Colorado State quarterback Pete Thomas has a sprained left knee that not only has left his status for Saturday’s game against TCU in doubt, it has irreversibly opened the door to playing freshman Garrett Grayson this season.
Grayson, a strong-armed quarterback who threw for more than 10,000 yards in high school, was being held out to preserve a redshirt season and put another year of eligibility between him and Thomas.
There’s a chance Grayson could redshirt later in his career, but it won’t be this season.
“He’ll play now,” coach Steve Fairchild said. “He’ll play some in every game. We’ve got to commit to him. Even when Pete’s back, be it this week or next week, whenever, I think Garrett deserves the right to play in the games, and we’ll do that.”
Grayson will get some if not all of the practice repetitions this week. The extent of work he receives depends on Thomas’ availability. Fairchild said Thomas remains day to day with the knee injury, comparing it to a sprained MCL suffered by offensive tackle Paul Madsen. Madsen sat a week with the injury before returning.
“It will keep him out maybe this week. Who knows? Maybe not. We’ll see,” Fairchild said.
Asked if Thomas needs to return to practice by a certain day this week or be ruled out of the game against the Horned Frogs, Fairchild said no.
“Not by a certain day, but he needs to practice a certain way,” Fairchild said. “I need to feel like he can help us win. If he’s limping around out there, that obviously wouldn’t be the right thing to do for the team.”
Thomas, a sophomore, has started every game in his CSU career, 21 total. That streak appears to be in jeopardy.
“We’ll know more as he gets checked out,” Fairchild said. “We’ll see how available he is (today). It does not look to be season-ending, I don’t think.”
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
