Correspondent Brendan Galella, covering USF football practice this morning, sent me the following text message: "Robinson is back and grothe looks fine." The sound you hear is a lot of Bulls fans exhaling.

It's not all in the clear yet: after going through early drills with USF's running backs, Grothe was held out of the team's conditioning runs, then only watched as quarterbacks Grant Gregory and Anthony Severino worked in position drills. Galella reports that after looking good at the start of practice, Grothe looked "sore and walking gingerly."

Linebacker Chris Robinson's return after missing more than a week with an ankle injury is an encouraging step -- he'd donned shoulder pads and his No. 49 white jersey Monday. It looks like the time away has given junior transfer Tyrone McKenzie the opening-day starting nod at strongside linebacker, but Robinson's playmaking ability will have him on the field, either at linebacker or as a nickel defensive end.

Grothe gave USF coaches -- and his dad and brother, in attendance -- a scare Monday when he was slow coming off the practice field with a mild groin injury. Offensive coordinator Greg Gregory had said the injury wasn't serious, and Grothe being back on the field the next day is a reminder of the injuries he played through last season. We'll continue to monitor his progress and update as we can.

-- An unfortunate entry from the Where Are They Now Dept.: former Blake defensive end George Kearse, who signed with USF in 2004 but didn't qualify academically, has run into legal problems. Kearse had committed to Missouri out of junior college in 2006 but never signed. He was arrested late Monday night on a felony charge of possession of cocaine and remains in jail, held on $2,000 bond.