Just a little over five months after breaking his leg, junior inside linebacker Roper Garrett of the Southeast Missouri State football team has returned to the playing field for spring football.

Garrett suffered the injury on Oct. 25 in a 33-21 road loss to Ohio Valley Conference opponent Eastern Kentucky.

Spring football began on March 10 at Houck Stadium, and Garrett was where he loves to be, which is on the field with his team.

"I mean it feels great [being back]," Garrett said. "It was a long process, but I'm slowly starting to get back into the middle of things. I'm out here with my team, and I love to play."

The team started out spring practice in half pads, but two weeks in the Redhawks are now in full pads and even held a scrimmage on Saturday where Garrett recorded multiple tackles.

Before the injury, Garrett was one of the leading tacklers in the nation last year and ended up being tied for 10th in tackles in the FCS by averaging 10.7 per game.

"My injury was back in the end of October, and I had the surgery soon after that," Garrett said. "I had to take a week or two off and then I just started getting into a treatment and just working on it so I could be back here right now."

Garrett had his surgery three days after the injury on Oct. 28.

In the surgery, pins were placed over his fibula to help stabilize the fracture and also his ankle joint.

Garrett spent weeks waiting to begin rehab with crutches and a walking boot.

After Garrett was allowed to start his rehabilitation, he tried to get in one or two rehab sessions every morning where he worked on range of motion and also worked on strengthening his lower leg and ankle.

"I'm a little worried about my ankle just holding up on me," Garrett said. "But right now it's feeling really good and hopefully it will stay that way going into the season."

The pins that were stabilizing Garrett's ankle joint were removed in the rehab process and from that point he returned to activity.

"Slow progression through running, through jogging, getting him through there and getting him back to the weight room, building strength around the ankle eventually where he is able to go full go out there on the football field," Ben Fox, co-interim head athletic trainer for the football team, said.

Fox worked with Garrett through the rehab process and said that he knew that Garrett was motivated to get back out onto the football field.

"Roper was awesome to work with. Rehab can be a tedious task that's not a lot of fun," Fox said. "Sometimes it hurts, it gets boring here in the athletic training room, but he came in with a great attitude everyday. He came in with the mindset that he was going to get better and that he was going to do whatever it took to get back out on the field, and that is what he has done."

With Garrett being immobilized for a period of time after the surgery and having to wear a cast, he wasn't able to move his ankle and it became very stiff.

"You lose strength in that [ankle], and if you don't have that strength in your ankle then you're not able to walk, you're not able to run and you're not able to do what you need to do at full speed," Fox said. "So that's why a lot of our focus was on ankle rehabilitation."

For practice, Garrett's lower leg and ankle are wrapped in medical tape and he also uses a brace.

Fox and the training staff tried to use some padding over the area, but Garrett wasn't comfortable with it.

Before spring football began, Garrett had a minor setback when he was having abnormal soreness in his leg.

"What we were able to do there is we kind of backed off a little bit, got him a little bit of rest, Spring Break was a big help with that," Fox said. "And then just slowly progressed back into full go where last Saturday out in the scrimmage he was full go, looking pretty good."

Garrett said that his teammates and coaches were always there to support him while he was going through rehab.

"They are all supportive and they all know how much I love this game, and they know how much this means to me and how much I want to be out there with them," Garrett said.

Southeast has three weeks left of spring football, which ultimately leads up to the team's Spring Game on April 18.

With several other defenders returning to this year's defense, Garrett hopes that Southeast's defense can be one of the top units in the FCS.

Garrett also added that he is taking on a bigger leadership role this season and he is also returning as one of the eight members on the team's leadership council.

"I'm very humble about all of my stuff, but none of those stats would be possible without my teammates," Garrett said. "But I know I'm one of the leaders and everybody looks up to me, and I just hope to lead this team in a positive way throughout the season."