Spring Practice Stock Characters: Meet the Comeback Kids

Renewing the annual templates of spring. Monday: The Dueling Quarterbacks. Tuesday: The Early Enrollees. Today: The most intriguing injury casualties returning to the lineup.

• BLAINE IRBY, TE, Texas. Irby is reportedly at 100 percent and legitimately competing for the Longhorns' vacant tight end job, but he doesn't have to do anything to earn his "fan favorite" badge except show up: After missing two full seasons in 2009-10 and the last ten games of 2008 rehabbing a grisly knee injury he suffered that September, he's due for the loudest reception in the stadium if he makes it to the spring game intact.

• KAI MAIAVA, C, UCLA. Maiava was the first of many dominoes on the L.A. offense to fall last summer, biting for the season with a broken ankle on the third play of a scrimmage in August. The Bruins wound up down three starting offensive linemen for the entirety of their slowly unfolding disaster of a season, which included two quarterbacks being knocked out for the year, another suffering a concussion and the offense finishing dead last in the Pac-10 in total yards per game. If there's any hope at all for coach Rick Neuheisel to save his job this fall – i.e. a winning record and recognizable bowl game – it begins with Maiava establishing some semblance of consistency in the middle of the line.

• ROBERT MARVE, QB, and RALPH BOLDEN, RB, Purdue. If human body parts could be recalled, the ACLs in the 2010 Boilermakers would have all been replaced, free of charge. Bolden's season was finished in April, when he re-injured the same ligament he tore in high school; Marve didn't make out of September, going down with his second ACL tear in the fourth game, two weeks after All-Big Ten receiver was lost for the year with a torn ACL and MCL. (Purdue basketball star Robbie Hummell added to the campus' pain with another season-ending ACL injury in October.) Smith won't be back, and Marve and Bolden may both be (literally) on their last legs after multiple injuries, but both are also expected to make strong runs at renewing their roles as the offense's most reliable playmakers.

• TYLER MOELLER, LB/S, Ohio State. Moeller waited three years behind Marcus Freeman to move to the top of the depth chart, and another year in the aftermath of a terrifying brain injury that nearly killed him in August 2009. Finally in the regular rotation last year on passing downs, he was stricken again, this time by a season-ending pectoral injury in the fifth game. With a medical hardship in his pocket, Moeller has one more chance to resume his role and spend a full season cracking someone else's head for a change.

• CHRISTIAN TUPOU, DT, USC. Tupou blew out his knee last spring, leaving a 290-pound void in the middle of the Trojans' defensive line that was never filled – opposing offenses averaged 140 yards per game on the ground last fall, easily the most allowed by USC in almost a decade. The 2011 rotation is even thinner: Juniors Jurrell Casey (draft) and Hebron Fangupo (transfer) and senior Derek Simmons are all on their way out, leaving Tupou's successful return as the only thing between the top of the depth chart at nose tackle and a gaggle of freshmen.

• TROY WOOLFOLK, CB, Michigan. The astonishing attrition rate in the Wolverine secondary more or less foretold the smoking rubble it would become before the season, but it was the ugly results. Not that that group could possibly get any worse under high-priced new coordinator Greg Mattison, but Woolfolk's healthy return can go a long way toward a more substantial step forward.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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