Coaches and players often talk about a player’s ability to play hurt. SMU offensive lineman Bryce Tennison is just looking forward to having a chance to play un-hurt, basically for the first time in his college career.

The junior-to-be, who has started for the Mustangs at guard for the last two years, is moving this fall to center, where he will compete with Blake McJunkin for the starting position.

Bryce Tennison said he is ready to lead the offensive line when he returns to the field this fall at center (photo by Travis Johnston).

In his first college game, the 2008 season opener against Rice, Tennison injured his left shoulder while leading a wedge on special teams. The bad wing bothered him off and on over the last two years, until he had offseason surgery this spring to clean out bone spurs.

When the Ponies played at the University of Houston last Oct. 24 — Tennison’s birthday — he suffered what he believed at the time was a strained lower abdominal muscle. The day after the game, he could barely move when he woke up. SMU head coach June Jones chose to rest Tennison for three weeks in the hopes of having his right guard available down the stretch as the Ponies battled for their first bowl bid in 25 years. Thanks to a combination of rest, anti-inflammatory medicine, cortisone shots, a heat pack inside his uniform and plain stubbornness, Tennison played in the regular-season finale against Tulane and in the Ponies’ 45-10 laugher over Nevada in the Hawaii Bowl.

An offseason of rest and doctor’s appointments revealed that what was believed to have been a lower abdominal strain was instead a double hernia. Shortly after recovering from his shoulder surgery, Tennison went under the knife again.

Before either surgery, he got hurt again. Tennison, who broke his left foot twice in high school, broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot … stepping out of his shoes. At least that injury healed without another trip to the operating room.

“I wish I had a better story than that, but I don’t,” Tennison said. “I was using one foot to take the other shoe off. I stepped out of the shoe, sort of stepped on the side of (the foot), and … you put 295 pounds on a bone like that, something’s going to give. It did.”

The Mustangs’ resident one-man M*A*S*H unit sat out spring workouts while working his way back from his injuries. Unable to lift weights, and joining roommate/right tackle J.T. Brooks on a revamped eating program based on fish and chicken, Tennison withered down to 268 pounds, making him look like a shadow of the player who normally carried around 300 pounds when he took the field last year. At different times during the spring semester, his left arm was in a sling from the shoulder surgery, his foot was in a protective boot while his foot healed. Even after he was out of the sling and walking without a boot, doctors prohibited him from doing any heavy lifting while recovering from the hernia surgery. Tennison is hoping to be cleared to resume all lifting and conditioning workouts with his teammates by the beginning of July.

If that wasn’t enough, Tennison watched practice knowing that he will switch to a new position when he returns to the field this fall. To be accurate, center isn’t an entirely new position for Tennison — he played the position in high school and with the Mustangs’ scout team during his redshirt season in 2007.

“I just need to get some reps in,” he said. “It will come back.”

Tennison said his transition back to center will be made easier by the fact that he spent the last two years playing next center Mitch Enright, who Tennison called “a genius at the position” whose preparation each week allowed him to understand opposing defenses’ formations and alignments, and subsequently allowed him to call the right blocking schemes.

“Mitch was so confident in what he did, because he’s a great student of the game,” Tennison said. “He watched so much film that he knew he could trust his calls, because they were always the right call.

“You have to know what you’re doing — you can’t hesitate. You can’t play at 70 percent. The offense just clicked to Mitch faster than it did to the young guys. So just being around him, watching him prepare and practice and watch film … anybody can learn by being around Mitch.”

Tennison is almost ready to work out again with his teammates after offseason surgeries on his shoulder and hernia (photo by Travis Johnston).

As he has resumed his training while rehabilitating from the hernia surgery, Tennison has regained some of his bulk — he says he now weighs about 285 pounds — and said his strength is returning, but that he is far from being back to where he wants to be.

“I’m close to being … average,” Tennison said. “But I’m not where I want to be — not yet. I need to put a little more weight back on, I need to get stronger.”

Tennison said that his desire to get back on the field makes it tough for him to stay within the confines of his rehab schedule. He said strength and conditioning coach Mel DeLaura and his staff have done a good job of keeping Tennison from pushing too hard, too quickly.

“It seems like every three-to-five lifts, Mel is checking up on me,” Tennison said. “They make sure I only do what I’m allowed to do.”

With Tennison’s planned move to center, his old right guard position likely will go to fellow junior Kelly Turner, who has less collegiate playing experience, but Tennison said he is more than comfortable playing beside Turner.

“I trust Kelly Turner completely,” Tennison said. “He’s been in this offense for a couple of years, and he’s a smart player. He’s also a big boy, and unbelievably strong.

“And it’s not like he hasn’t played. He started three games last year, and played in the bowl game.”

Tennison’s slew of injuries over the last year have made him wonder if he is somewhat jinxed.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he said. “But that’s the kind of player I am. I don’t take plays off, and I go hard until the whistle. I run downfield looking for someone else to hit.

“I guess if I’m going to play that way, injuries are a possibility. But I also know that it’s the only way I know how to play. I’m going to talk to the opponent, I’m going to get in that last shove at the whistle. That attitude has worked for me at guard, and it’s going to work for me at center, too.”