Cam’s surgeon spoke with The Athletic

[Ghost of the HEB]

Posted midday today. Some highlights:
— ElAttrache said Rising’s multi-ligament injury plus the meniscus tear usually takes top-flight athletes anywhere from 10 to 12 months to return to competition. So far, Rising’s knee “doesn’t have a lick of swelling in it” and has been responding to very continuous demand nicely, ElAttrache said. There has been no excess fluid buildup after practices or stiffness that limits his range of motion.
— “With regard to where Cam is, he has been right on or ahead of schedule the entire time with what he was able to do and what we would let him do,” ElAttrache said.
— Progressing so swiftly doesn’t mean benchmarks are always cleared all at once. Rising was cleared to do certain non-contact drills in preseason camp, which ElAttrache said perhaps planted the idea that Rising was back and ready to go for the start of the season.
— “He’s gaining on it,” ElAttrache said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be a week or two weeks. Cam is close, but there’s a few things that we really need to still see before we can have him go back as safe as possible at this point. We’re not even going to be nine months from the surgery until the 16th of this month. Until he gets some of his power and mechanics refined, this last phase of the return to competition — or what I call return to performance — happens at different paces in different people.”
— Regarding Cam talking of loyalty to the team and wanting to get back ASAP: “And he wasn’t saying it in a bitter way, it was just a matter of fact,” ElAttrache said. “I kept saying, ‘Cam, you’re forgetting where you are in this thing. The strength of that ligament healing and maturing is not where I need it to be if you do the types of things you’re going to need to do in an instant on the field.’ He has this inner feeling he’s got a responsibility to the team and to his coach and he wants to compete as soon as possible. He wants to do it. He’s counting on me and trusting me that I will look out for him and I’ll protect him from him, to some degree. That’s my priority.”
— “My interest is definitely getting him back to competition as safely and as soon as possible, but in addition to when he gets back, to give him every chance of him not re-injuring that knee because there was a deficit that we allowed him to go back to play with.”
— Kamrani brought up Whit’s interview from today: When asked if he would change the messaging of the quarterback situation and Rising’s scenario, Whittingham said: “That’s a tough question. I don’t know if I have a good answer for that. I probably don’t have a good enough answer to waste your time with.”
Dr. ElAttrache with Chris Kamrani

[Roy Rangum]

Thanks for the summary.

This sounds accurate to me. I don’t think Cam was intentionally misleading people in saying he was coming back this season, it sounds like he was / is truly eager to play, but at best he was definitely looking at this with rose colored glasses.

And I can’t blame his surgeon from holding Cam back. The team doctors don’t lose much if cam reinjures himself, but this Cali surgeon has a National reputation to protect, and he’s going to be very cautious.

What sucks is that Whittingham didn’t see the writing on the wall right after the injury, as I think his best move would have been to declare Cam was doing a medical redshirt year this year which could have helped with landing a portal QB.

[RedUte14]

there is no way Cam would have gotten the redshirt.
right?
i’m pretty sure Kuithe can, but i don’t think he wants to.

[2008 National Champ]

This is each their final year of eligibility so they would both have to apply for a medical. If anything, I would say that Rising has the better chance due to having to sit out 2019 while other QB’s were given a waiver.

Kuithe played every possible game from 2018 through his injury in 2022, 4 1/3 years. Rising has played 2 years and one quarter of one game. For two people in the same recruiting class, that’s a huge difference.

[tanute3]

My question is why were we led to believe that Cam’s injury was a “clean” tear of the ACL, when in reality it was everything but that?

[RoboUte]

From official sources we had no clear expectation of anything. As to why this particular board thought Cam was doing gymnastics in early June, you can thank OnlyU. I’m really glad the dude is here and I definitely still trust him but that was not one of his better reads. And frankly it didn’t rest solely on him. He gave us a little glimmer of hope and the posters here just absolutely magnified it beyond where it belonged while simultaneously shouting down any disagreement to the point that it became the board’s prevailing narrative that Cam was basically fine to start vs Florida.

[RustyShackleford]

When has onlyu ever been wrong in the past? Makes me think there was some fishy stuff going on with his timeline and coaches were told incorrect info

[2008 National Champ]

I’m not bashing OnlyU here but he doubled and tripled down on both Rising and Kuithe playing in the Florida game. So I’m in agreement that the messaging in the program that was getting to him was obviously flawed when viewed in retrospect.

What many of us are struggling with is why was it so flawed? And were the assumptions made reasonable because they sure don’t seem to be right now. OnlyU, Ghost or anyone else with ties to the program can’t help with that.

[RoboUte]

It possible because it’s clear that he’s in the know.

[RoboUte]

Super reasonable. So why didn’t Whittingham know any of this?

[The Miami Ute]

Many thanks for the summary. So, essentially, it’s as many people have said on this board…that Cam will not play, or play very little, in the 2023 season, or at least not enough to make any sort of difference. I wonder if he’s up for a medical redshirt or if the team would be amenable to having him back in 2024.

[RoboUte]

The timelines, expectations, and general protocol of his return have all been outlined by more than one poster here in the past and all were buried in downvotes. Absolutely none of this is new information.

[The Miami Ute]

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. We’re about to enter the “self-evident” phase.

[2008 National Champ]

Third) it is half-heartedly acknowledged as truth and the same people who were ridiculed in phases one and two are told they should move on and stop making a big deal of it

[DataUte]

10-12 months is absolutely new. At least to this board and the vehement 12-18 month recovery period. Certainly is head-scratching why there was hope he’d be back by FL. Even hoping for conference play or ‘after the bye’ would have been a ‘better’ guess. The doc does say it could (could) be a week or 2 and he wants him to ‘return to performance’. So that could (could) be half a season to ‘save’ us from our woes. Even 4 games plus postseason still seems worth a try.

[The Miami Ute]

Come on…please be reasonable. There have been people on this site that have been saying 10-12 months for an ACL for a while, and 12-18 months for a triad since we got that information. The 10-12 months for a triad that Dr. El-Attrache outlines is the bare minimum and there’s no guarantee that he meets that timeline. Dr El-Attrache specifically says about Cam that “until he gets some of his power and mechanics refined, this last phase of the return to competition — or what I call return to performance — happens at different paces in different people.”. That doesn’t fill me with great confidence that we’ll see him in a week or two.

As a point of inference, if you knew in January of this year that it would be mid-November before Cam could even take the field, would that be a successful scenario for you? I can only give my opinion and the answer is a resounding ‘No”, since he would only be able to play two regular season games and have little influence over the season.

[Charlie]

Thanks Miami, this helps me understand the gap in our views. I take a Dr’s comment of 10 – 12 months differently. To me it is most cases are 10-12 months. Outliers would be individuals that beat the common timeframe or individuals that take a very long time or don’t recover at all to previous health. No know minimum, no know max. I would expect that over a hundred surgeries a few would beat the 10 month wait and maybe more that a few are greatly disappointed as 12 months pass without coming close. Even the Dr said Cam has been right on or ahead of schedule the entire time so to an optimist like myself data points that report ahead of schedule could sow seeds of maybe we can be lucky enough to come in early. I see hints that Cam leaned that way. The Dr also said he didn’t know if it would be a week or two (Cal or USC?) but he did not say it will not be a week or two. Cam is close and we have a week and change to get to 9 months. Not everyone is going to read those tea leaves the same way. Maybe we allow some to read ‘maybe early’ and some to read ‘no, down the road a way’. But a conservative view would be plan for the worst and hope for the best.

[2008 National Champ]

Statistically speaking, the 10 month figure is already the low range and any recovery time less than that would be the outlier.

Without knowing sample size, we have to assume 11 months is the mean. We also have to assume a significant majority of the sample is between 10 and 12 months, so for the sake of argument let’s say that 80% of high performing athletes will recover in that time period. With a standard bell curve, the 10 month time frame would be 91.9% of mean recovery time (10 divided by 11).

Using my premise, which very well have bad data but the theory isn’t flawed, an 8 month recovery (mid-August) would be 72.7% of mean. Planning for an outlier of this magnitude is roughly the equivalent of hitting on 18 in blackjack. Yes, you can pull the A, 2, or 3 you need but the odds say that you bust yourself before you ever see the dealer’s cards.

[RoboUte]

Is it? Here’s a poster talking about that timeline just five days ago

And he was far from being the first. You just have to google stuff tbh.

[DataUte]

1) that was when everyone thought it was just an ACL tear (and maybe not even a complete tear). The other ‘expert(s)’ here immediately said 12-18 when it was found out to be ACL, MCL, meniscus, …

2) hard to keep track of new posts within middle of one of 17 threads on the topic where everyone is putting out their incomplete guesses

[PlainsUte]

Very odd him talking to the media about a specific patient like this. Borders on a HPPA violation, but grateful for the flavor on the process.

[The Miami Ute]

Cam authorized him to provide details related to his injury recovery. That’s what it says at the beginning of the article. Otherwise he’d certainly be in 🔥 💦 for doing the interview.

[Utah]

So let me get this straight:

Cam KNEW FROM DAY 1 it was 10-12 months before he could play. Which means October at the soonest.

And you are telling me that Kyle knew this as well and then screwed himself and the team over by being lazy and NOT going after a transfer QB?

OR

Cam knew that if he was upfront with his injury a couple of things would happen:

His money goes away. No one wants to pay a QB to not play for you. And what if he doesn’t have an amazing recovery and can’t play for a year? Then he misses the whole season. Who is going to pay half a million for a QB who won’t play vs taking that money and throwing it at a transfer QB?

If a new QB comes in and plays well and Utah is undefeated right now and a top 10 team…does Cam get his job back? Probably not. And what if the new QB isn’t a SR and has multiple years left? Then Cam is done at Utah, done with his money, maybe done with football forever.

But you want me to believe that Rising was up front with Whitt and told him October at the earliest, December at the most realistic and Whitt did nothing?

I don’t buy it.

[The Miami Ute]

You’re a month off. Cam’s surgery took place on 16 January so the earliest he would be able to play would be mid-November. If he was able to come back at that time, he would only be able to play two regular season games (18 and 25 November). Yeah, this whole plot is starting to become worthy of ‘Game of Thrones.” A lot of things don’t make sense but people get mad when you mention the discrepancies.

[Utah]

That just makes me think Cam lied to Whitt even more.

Whitt’s not dumb. He isn’t going to sacrifice his whole defense for Cam. I highly doubt if Whitt was told from day 1 Cam wouldn’t be able to play until November, he would have sat on his hands.

If anything, your other thread shows Whitt was under the assumption Cam would be back by Florida. Someone told him this.

This really looks like Cam misled Utah for Cam’s own best interest.

[The Miami Ute]

Cui bono?

[EagleMountainUte]

Well the other thing is Rising is the one who set up this interview with the Atlantic. The first few paragraphs make it seem like his agent took care of it.

Now it is speculative. But remember the U can’t compel Rising to make his doctor speak to the media.

This has been a weekend of narrative control. Is it the U or Rising?

[RoboUte]

“Cam KNEW FROM DAY 1 it was 10-12 months before he could play. Which means October at the soonest”

There’s the realization. Tough one to reconcile eh?

[The Miami Ute]

Except that 10 months from his surgery wouldn’t be October but 16 November. Makes it even worse to reconcile.

[Utah]

So why was Whitt under the impression Cam could be back by the Florida game? Why was Cam getting QB1 reps before every game this season?

Why did Whitt change his policy to “if you aren’t going to 100% play, you don’t get QB1 reps?”

If you take a step back and look at it, it looks really bad for Cam. It looks like Cam lied and has continued to lie about his readiness. And Cam knows if he lied and took money that was based on him playing, he could owe money to people. And so now he wants to spin it to make it look like Whitt foolishly held QB1 open for him knowing he wouldn’t play until Oct/Nov and people foolishly gave him money knowing he wouldn’t play.

It makes no sense for Whitt to lie about any of this. It makes all the sense in the world for Cam to lie about it.

[2008 National Champ]

There is a 3rd option: everyone involved screwed up. Not out of malice, but they got it wrong. I’d say full stop, but there are close to 1,000 posts on this subject and we are still doing our RATT impression (round and round, what comes around goes around, I’ll tell you why).

[Roy Rangum]

It has been shared by OnlyU before that Whitt did try to get a portal QB during the off-season. They just weren’t successful in getting one, which makes sense as Cams presence was looming large.

But none of this means that Whitt is incompetent or Cam is a liar.

I think Cam wants to play and was hoping he would play. Super competitive people often think they will beat the odds. Whitt tired to get a portal QB but couldn’t. That’s just the way the cookie crumbled.

[The Miami Ute]

Whitt said himself publicly that there was no attempt to go into the portal because he thought that no QB would want to come here at the same time that Cam was here.

Utah going to transfer portal for Rising insurance never made sense. Just ask Whittingham