Taking stock of our injury issues

[chinngiskhaan]

I’m starting to think that many of the injured guys who have been out since the beginning of the season are more injured that we initially hoped (not just talking about Rising/Kuithe, but O’Toole, Pepa and others as well). Not only that, but our injury situation doesn’t seem to be getting better BUT SOMEHOW WORSE(!) from week to week.

QB: QB1 and 2 out
RB: RB2 and 3 out (Curry would be #3 if healthy IMO, and he is only kinda sorta back), Jackson is playing hurt. I don’t think we have a single healthy running back in what would have been our 4 deep depth chart at RB. Jackson, Bernard, Curry, and Glover are all out or banged up.
WR: Pittman is out, Vele was out against Weber
TE: TE1 is out
OL: Pretty sure Kump has been filling in for someone, maybe one other injury as well
DE: O’Toole is out, Fillinger is in but doesn’t seem right
DT: Pepa hasn’t played yet, and Tafuna has missed time as well I think
LB: Reid
CB: Broughton missed the Weber game
S: Nate Ritchie got hurt against Weber, but… and I don’t know if I dare type this… are both of our starters here actually healthy??? (I knocked on wood).
K: You know the injury bug is brutally bad when the Kicker can’t even stay healthy
P: Healthy (for now)

It was nearly this bad at the beginning of the season, and it has only gotten worse (not better).

Please stop whining about not playing good enough. We are missing like half of our contributors (most of them starters or guys who would be starting in place of those already injured). There isn’t a team in the country that wouldn’t struggle with this many injuries.

This all really sucks, but even if it leads to this year being a disaster, next year is going to be much better as a result.

[Xanthis]

I know a few fans that came back from Waco with covid. I am hoping some of the guys that were out last weekend had some sort of flu versus more serious injuries.

[DataUte]

Good summary. One nit – I don’t like how everyone says QB2 is out. Yes, Rose was emerging as the potential 2, but it was still a toss-up when he got injured (never listed on a 2-deep). Even if he had emerged, he would’ve been just as raw and mistake-prone as Nate. But I digress, just my opinion :).

All these injuries remind me of early PAC12 years in November. But that was Nov! When we had played 2/3 of our games. It is really nice that we now have depth and our 2nds are good enough to be 3-0 instead of 1-2 (like last year). But man, I hope some get back in soon. Probably will be a mixed bag, but minor injuries linger, major ones take more time than hoped to return from AND be effective (Rising will be less mobile no matter when he returns, Kuithe? Will only be gravy if we see him play at all).

Fully healthy team with normal occurrence of injuries throughout the year? This is a team ready to 3-peat and be in the mix for CFP. Currently? I really think they can fight for 9, 10 wins, but we’ll need some of these fellas back intermittently and for the big games.

[Rick]

You are wrong about Rose. Based on the spring game and summer camp up to his injury, he was the clear #2 and would have been the starter barring injury. I watched him in spring and he is clearly a better QB than Barnes and Nate. He is very similar to Cam in his delivery and execution and he has pretty decent feet.

[RoboUte]

OnlyU recently spoke about this and didn’t confirm placement either way but he was pretty tepid on Rose. I’m sure hes doing well but the general the tone of the comment was one of a player that needed a lot of work still. I’m hopeful that he recovers soon

[DataUte]

I hope Rose recovers fully and sticks around and competes. We’ll never know if he would have beat out Barnes/Nate for game 1 or if it would have been Rose/Nate and see where it goes. We’ll have plenty of Nate on film, but with Isaac coming in, could be a 3 man race for starter and qb2 mext year and the odd one might transfer. Barnes will probably be qb3. Maybe we can RS Isaac, but if his HS video game numbers half translates to college (and he can learn the system quickly), it might be hard keeping him off the field. And with Nate doing pretty good at qb, probably will be hard to get him to switch positions (he’d probably be all conference at one or two). But he’s earned the right to keep competing.

[Italy88]

I would really hope our players aren’t testing for COVID. There is no reason to.

[Roy Rangum]

Whether they test for it or not doesn’t change the fact that if you get sick with COVID, there’s a good chance you might be too sick to play for a few days. But for young healthy college athletes, I would hope that none of them miss more than one game because of it (or any games depending on timing).

[RoboUte]

There was a thread here about Whitt making a comment on one of the injuries sustained during the weber game could be season ending and I don’t see that accounted for here. Which is fair because we don’t know who it is. Could it be Munir Mcclain? I heard he left the field hobbling.

[enigami344]

We had soft practices last year and it ended up we had a soft D to start the season. We dialed up the practices this year then we have a ton of injuries. I hope the early wave of injuries mean that we will have fresh guys in the second half of the season

[EagleMountainUte]

I really don’t feel like we can count Curry, Kuithe and Rising for injuries on the 2023 season. Curry’s was a horrific injury from last year.
I did think Kuithe would be back by now but understand why he isn’t back.
Rising I was thinking week 3-5 as well.

Pepa and Tafuna are the largest impact on the season. I really think Pepa is Utahs overall best player next to Bishop. Barton probably third. These guys are first day draft picks. OToole is right in there as well. These guys being out will cause Utah to lose OSU, USC and OU. Which eliminates Utah from the P12 title.

I know many have said CFP is the goal. Injury wise I am reluctant in this team getting to 8 wins.

[SteelUte]

I hope this doesn’t happen, but it seems we may not be at full strength until the end of the season. Which will suck if we lose a couple of games and we’re out of the hunt for the p-12 championship and are playing our best and healthiest at that point. Hope we can keep winning and adding our best players in the weeks to come.

[ZoomerUte]

Utah has so much pessimism and caution about the injuries after being burned 3 times. Most of the injuries haven’t been season ending and I still believe a couple of key players will be out there for UCLA. Its been 9 1/2 months since Cam’s ACL surgery and nearly 12 since Brant’s. Junior was rusty vs Baylor and O’Toole will be healthy. The Baylor game was in 100 degree heat in humidity so I am certain a lot of players were exhausted and couldn’t play Weber.
This team is proving they are great right now on defense (top 10 in the country) and now they need to prove how great they can be on offense.