Life as an LSU football player hasn’t always been easy for fifth-year senior defensive tackle Quentin Thomas. The game has taken its toll on him several times.
Thomas has suffered at least four injuries as a Tiger, two of which came in 2014. A rotator cuff injury when he arrived in Baton Rouge, a torn plantar fascia his redshirt sophomore year and tears to both biceps last season have limited his skills and prevented him from maximizing his potential. During the only season Thomas was healthy, he played in three games as a redshirt freshman in 2012.
Thomas’s odyssey has been a rollercoaster, but it hasn’t been without its high points. As the self-acknowledged “grandpa” of the current roster, Thomas is the only remaining member of the 2011 Southeastern Conference Championship team — the only player on the team to taste the thrill of winning one of the most successful leagues over the past decade.
It was a “surreal” experience for Thomas, sitting quietly and learning from a host of veterans, many of whom are flourishing in the NFL. Even with the rotator cuff injury in fall camp of 2011, the Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, native would have redshirted anyway, but he still values what he witnessed as a rookie defender on the fifth -best defense in the country that season.
“I got to see how they practice, how they learn the plays and kind of feed off how they perform,” Thomas said. “I try to emulate that as I go along in my process.”
Much has changed during his time at LSU, but what hasn’t changed is Thomas’ ability to persevere. Not even a strained medial collateral ligament in high school stopped him from receiving a scholarship to the school he always wanted to attend.
But Thomas wasn’t as lucky by the time his LSU career was beginning to take off.
Thomas suffered the plantar fascia injury in pregame warmups of the third game of the 2013 season against Kent State. He wasn’t held out for a long time, missing just two games, and was given the starting nod in place of former LSU defensive tackle Ego Ferguson against Iowa in the Outback Bowl.
Though he battled the injury all year and was making his first career start, Thomas was ready for the spotlight.
“Whether you’re a backup or not, you prepare like a starter,” Thomas said. “Going into that game, I expected Ego [Ferguson] to be playing. I didn’t know until we got there that I was going to be the starter … You don’t want to be that guy where the starter goes down and you got to fill in, and it slacks off in that area. Me having to step up and be the starter was just like having to play backup in my mind. All that meant was more reps.”
With the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Thomas played virtually the entire game with just a three-man rotation. It was a moment that could have lasted forever for him, but brighter times were on the horizon.
Heading into his junior season last year, Thomas was slated to start on former LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis’s defensive line. Then, the injury bug reared its head again.
Thomas endured a 6 centimeter tear to his right bicep, attempting to make a play on then-freshman running back Leonard Fournette on the third day of fall practice. Feeling hopeless, the lineman called his mother, Charlotte Journet, which is usually not a good sign.
“See, I love my mom,” Thomas said. “Some guys, their parents pressure them or are on their back all the time. My mom trusts me as a man, as an adult, to handle my business. She’s not really on my back much. She knows if I ever call her, something is probably wrong. We have that relationship. We talk every now and then. But if we’re talking a lot, something is wrong.”
Thomas tried to stay composed as Journet talked him through a tear-filled conversation. She even drove to the football facility the next day to speak with director of Athletic Training Jack Marucci, giving Thomas the feeling that it was far worse than he imagined.
As his devout mother told him, God had a plan for Thomas, but it wasn’t without another bump in the road.
By the time the 2014 season began, the 6-foot-3-inch, 313-pound defender was back in the starting lineup, still playing with the torn bicep. In week four against Mississippi State — his third start of the season — Thomas’s left bicep suffered a similar fate to his right arm on a tackle attempt on the first play of the fourth quarter.
“I laid on the field, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Damn, I just tore the other one,’” Thomas said with a laugh. “It wasn’t like me in pain. It was like, ‘I can’t believe I really just did this.’”
At that point, Thomas tried to find humor in a rupture to his other bicep, which was only half a centimeter more than his right but was much more painful for him. His teammates even jokingly dubbed his theme song as “No Flex Zone,” but they were there to keep his spirits up through another setback.
“We used to joke around him and tease him, but it was all love at the same time,” said sophomore defensive tackle Devon Godchaux.
To the amazement of the doctors, he was back on the field two weeks later against Florida. Although Godchaux claimed the starting job in his absence, starting defensive tackle Christian LaCouture is equally impressed he was able to complete the season without proper use of his arms.
“He was the third [defensive tackle] with two torn biceps,” said LaCouture. “That was amazing. You see guys who are out for the year with one. He had two, and he was still doing a great job. We all commend him for that.”
Thomas finally had surgery in the offseason, which kept him out all of spring practice. His left bicep was even surgically repaired with a hamstring graft, allowing for another joke for his teammates. He said he feels more effective with his arms now than before the injuries, a credit to new defensive line coach Ed Orgeron.
Thomas had to make up for lost time, but he finally considers himself to be 100 percent. Despite redshirt sophomore defensive tackles Frank Herron and Greg Gilmore contending for playing time in the middle of the line, Thomas feels his experience and maturity is still valuable to the defensive tackle depth, and the two starters at the position agree.
“‘Q’ is going into his fifth year, and he really wants to play,” LaCouture said. “His bicep are getting back [to full strength], and he’s really working hard to make sure that when he goes out there, he’s good to go. He should get some quality reps, and he’ll make sure to get the job done.”