Koby Quansah on playing with a broken thumb: "To me, this was nothing"

Linebacker playing with cast on his hand

“I was in a bigger cast before. They tried this new one. It’s a softer splint. I don’t really like it. It keeps my thumb exposed.”

“It’s been good so far. I don’t think about it until I guess it’s essentially time to use my hand, like unless I get the ball in my hand, I forget I have the cast on—or trying to hand tackle. It’s been helping me in my tackling. I have to put my body into somebody, instead of reaching. So it’s been good.”

It also makes it more difficult to do things like scooping up the fumble at Virginia Tech.

“I wasn’t thinking about it until I got there. Then I was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t really just grab it. I have to really do the whole technique of making a basket (with both hands) to scoop it.”

Would he be able to catch an interception?

“To the right? No. To the left? Yeah, I’ve got it,” he said.

The level of pain when he tries to use the thumb is significantly reduced from earlier.

“Not anymore, it doesn’t hurt,” he said. “At first, it bothered me a little bit. In games, the adrenaline kind of flushed that out, so I wasn’t thinking about it. Earlier in the season, after games, I would feel it, like the next day, a little bit.”

Did he consider sitting out a few games to let it heal?

“That was not an option,” he said, “especially since this is my last ride. It didn’t really matter what obstacle was in my way, especially getting hurt last season—this wasn’t really that serious. I’ve seen a lot of guys play with casts or long clubs. So to me, this was nothing.”