Desmond Ridder lofts the football, his touch so featherlight it's more like a graze. The ball arcs slightly then drops, right on cue, into the hands of his receiver. Ridder claps, a job well done. On his left hand, he sports a blue wristband. "Lack of worries," it says.
The quarterback of the seventh-best team in the country looks smooth and in command out here on the practice field. Only three days earlier, he engineered a come-from-behind win against Indiana on the road. He floated a perfect-touch 19-yard fade toward the back right corner of the end zone to retake the lead in the fourth quarter.