Jake Butt Tears ACL
[Fuller]
Per UM's Twitter:
Jake Butt Out Indefinitely with Torn ACL: http://t.co/p2yRL0eLOZ
— Michigan Football (@umichfootball) February 13, 2014
Butt was Michigan's best option to be a catchy-blocky tight end so this is Not Good.
I wouldn't automatically count him as a redshirt; recovery from ACL tears these days is really fast, though not guaranteed to be. FWIW Jake Ryan tore his on March 20 last year and made it back in late October. If Butt can recover at Ryan speed he'll be back for the conference games.
Either way the intervening months were going to be especially important for Butt to get comfortable in the offense and gain the requisite weight to get beyond the largely Just a Receiver™ role he played last year. Likelihood of Ian Bunting's shirt being burned just shot through the stratosphere, since extant options are A.J. Williams and Khalil Hill.
Silver lining: MORfleet? Fortunately Nussmeier seems to be much less reliant on TEs, going 3- and 4-wide quite often at Washington, so this can be mitigated somewhat by more slot receiver sets.
February 13th, 2014 at 1:59 PM ^
February 13th, 2014 at 3:08 PM ^
February 13th, 2014 at 3:40 PM ^
February 13th, 2014 at 3:50 PM ^
February 13th, 2014 at 4:17 PM ^
If you thought our TE blocking was bad last year, it will only get worse if we rely on a true freshman, not an early enrollee, who is being converted from a HS WR. I still wouldn't be surprised to see Bunting redshirt. We will either have to rely on rapid improvements from Williams and/or Hill, or Nuss will have to significantly deemphasize the position.
February 14th, 2014 at 4:03 AM ^
Comments