Powe on a steady diet of learning
OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt wants Jerrell Powe to drop another 15 pounds. Informed of his coach’s feelings after Tuesday afternoon’s practice, Powe laughed. He seemed shocked. He had, after all, lost 45 pounds since last fall. Now Nutt wanted 15 more?
“Losing weight is definitely something I have to work on, but it’s hard when they feed us the way they feed us,” said Powe, a sophomore nose tackle who still tips the scales somewhere north of 340 pounds. “After practicing like this, I ain’t turning down no catfish.”
And so it goes for Powe, one of the Southeastern Conference’s more famous reclamation projects, a one-man work-in-progress who hopes to take his next step when Ole Miss (2-2, 0-1) visits fourth-ranked Florida (3-0, 1-0) on Saturday.
Powe, who spent three years trying to gain academic eligibility to play for the Rebels, has worked the past two months to shed the rust from his layoff. And if defensive line coach Tracy Rocker once joked that the team would need a helicopter to airlift Powe on and off the field, he has made progress.
commercialappeal.com
9/25/08
