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Gray Diary: Rehab and recruiting rumblings

Four-star running back Jonas Gray of Detroit Country Day has agreed to do a diary for Rivals.com about his experiences leading up to and during the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. The game will be played at 1 p.m. EST on Jan. 5 and broadcast live on NBC. Players reported to San Antonio on Sunday and practices began on Monday. Gray will share his thoughts from San Antonio with Rivals.com each day.
SAN ANTONIO - Last night we went to downtown San Antonio. There was some type of carnival going on down there. We got a lot of stares, people asking us questions and a lot of people clapping for us. We also had a boat ride down the river and we all had our trophies up in the air. It was a good experience. There were a lot of people who knew Terrelle Pryor; it was actually pretty funny. There were people who knew Sam McGuffie too. We got a lot of head turns and it made us feel good, feel like superstars.
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This morning I went to see the trainers and they said I could practice if I wanted to, but they said they'd prefer that I didn't because if I did, it would only swell up more. They said it was best just to rest it today and rest it tomorrow too. It's an intra-squad scrimmage tomorrow and they said they are going to see how I feel tomorrow and determine if I am able to go. It's really nothing, just a minor sprain. The only reason it hurts is just because of all the inflammation.
Our first practice this morning basically all I did was just rehab. T.J. Bryant and I were rehabbing and got a chance to talk about who had better athletes – Florida or Michigan. Obviously, Florida won because they put out a lot of guys and they are a lot bigger than us as a state.
I didn't realize the trainers that we have are from Trinity College, the team that had the nine laterals. We got talking about that as well as the track athletes in San Antonio because me and T.J. are both in track. There is a sophomore who ran a 9.9, the nation's fastest time.
The second practice we had our walk through and I went through it just so I didn't miss anything and stayed up to speed. There were a couple of new wrinkles, but I didn't miss anything. I got to learn some things from Lamaar Thomas. We have a screen play that I didn't know about. We didn't run too many screens in high school. I was also going over some things with Ryan Williams.
After the practice we were all just chilling and talking about some recruiting stuff. We all think Darrell Scott is going to go to Texas. It's either Texas or Colorado we think. He also likes Michigan, but sometimes when a team is a close third they usually don't go to them. We think Terrelle Pryor is already committed to Ohio State too.
Dayne Crist and I had a chance to talk about whether Notre Dame was going to offer more scholarships to guys like my teammate Kenny Demens. He said he didn't know because we were trying to see how many scholarships we've got for 2009 and how big that class is going to be. We think that Gerell Robinson is definitely a guy we can get and also Deion Walker.
We also talked about the Omar Hunter situation too. I'm just prepared for whatever happens to happen. If he doesn't want to be a part of us, we understand. Everyone has to make the best decision for themselves.
I'm ready to get this rehab done and get ready to play. I'm excited to get back out there. I only got a couple reps, but I didn't think that the transition was that big of a transition. A lot of the 'backers are physical players and I'm a physical player too. I'm always going against Kenny Demens in practice and that's been good for me. The one thing is the speed of the defensive line. I haven't seen fast d-linemen like that, ever.
I'm staying motivated and I know I want to win the MVP. Even if I am not 100 percent, I know that once the adrenaline hits me when I go through the tunnel, it will put me over the hump and I'll be good to go.
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