The Indianapolis Colts are a team that remains a pretty sizable mystery at this point. They went from one of the best teams in the league to the worst team in the league very quickly and it's hard to predict where things will go from there, especially with rookie quarterback Andrew Luck, the first overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, taking the reins. The Chicago Bears will be the team to welcome Luck to the NFL, for better or for worse.
Fortunately, they've got a bit of knowledge on Luck's play, thanks to free safety Chris Conte. Brendan Murphy of ESPN had a piece on Conte, who played against Luck multiple times in college. Conte was with the California Golden Bears from 2007-2010, playing in 50 games (with 17 starts), and got more than his fair share of action against Luck.
"Went against Andrew in college and he's a great quarterback so I look forward to the opportunity to go against him," Conte said Thursday. "My senior year (versus Luck) it didn't go too well and they got the best of us. But we had a pretty good record against them and did some good things. We kind of went back and forth throughout college.
Stanford mostly got the best of Cal while Conte was playing, but the past and present Bear didn't necessarily have a bad game each time. What matters the most right now is seasoning, and Luck won't be a total mystery to a Bears team that has a lot of hype and needs to get to winning right out of the gate.
There's still a chance that Conte doesn't play on Sunday though. He missed the final two games of the preseason with a shoulder injury. He's been limited in practice the last few days, but he hasn't yet been ruled out for the game.
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