blicht4

February 13th, 2014 at 10:39 AM ^

Remember, we still have Khalid Hill coming off a redshirt last year. Hopefully Funchess, Williams, Hill and Paskorz are good enough so Bunting doesn't have to be called if he's not ready.

 

Silver lining is it's encouraging knowing we could potentially have Butt and Bunting as RS Freshmen in 2015...

bubblelevel

February 13th, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^

You are confused that a player is not named by some poster to be in the mix?  Huh?

 

Firstly, Jake Ryan hurt his ACL in April and played by October so Jake has 2 months and we don't know the severity (even though all are surgically repaired some are not as bad as others).

Shallman sounds to be an H back candidate or more skilled FB so he wouldn't be a pure replacement IMO.  Bunting could play a role but remember Jake had the benefit of spring ball to get a bit more experience.  Hill is rumored to have good hands but doesn't have the blocking mojo yet.  A.J. Williams is much leaner so at least the blocking guy with a bit more catching threat will be there. 

Set back for Jake but only for 14 perhaps.  Does not affect him long term.  I think we will be surprised by what this develops in other players and how qucikly Jake returns.

This is totally gut reaction but are we statistically different in terms of ACL injury rate in recent years versus other programs?  Yikes.

MechEng97

February 13th, 2014 at 9:32 AM ^

Yes, what is going on?  There has to be something that is/is-not being done in conditioning or style of work outs that makes us more susceptible to ACL tears.  I remember Barwis at some point talking about how he prides himself on not having these types of issues....how can anyone deny this?  Wellman needs to evaluate what is going on - I'd like to hear some non-boiler plate discussion about the topic from the staff.  

Lionsfan

February 13th, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^

It's not a UM thing. ACL injuries are on the rise across sports. Like the guy said below, you can't strengthen it, you just have to hope and pray.

 

Here's a nice article from Grantland, just talking about the ACL, injuring it, and just the sheer randomness of it all

mgoblueben

February 13th, 2014 at 3:47 PM ^

To start, I studied ACL and Knee Morphology in particular non-contact ACL tears for a long time.  Morphology plays a huge role.  You are correct that you cant necessarily strengthen the ACL but you can strengthen the surrounding muscles. however, the ACL tears when there is a torque delievered to the knee (landing at an angle, making a cut in football) . The ACL can take a huge load, upwards of 800 lbs of vertical force wont tear it, but add a little torque, even a 4 degree angle and its shreds.  Basically what I'm saying is players theses days are more muscular, weigh more, and run faster.  They are pushing their limits.  So the rise of the ACL tear is part nature, morphology of your knee, and part physicality of the game.  Looking at slow motion video imaging of actual tears shows we are putting more force on the ligament than in decades past (hence the rise of the injury in the 90's). 

Spontaneous Co…

February 13th, 2014 at 9:41 AM ^

if we have an "abnormal" amount of them, but you can't strengthen an ACL, you can only strengthen the muscles around it in hopes that the muscles are doing the work and the reducing the loads that the ACL sees.  There is also some though that you can train people how to cut, etc so that you are using more muscle and relying less on the bones and connective tissue.  However, I suspect that Jake Butt, Jake Ryan, Ondre Pipkins, Chris Wormely, Blake Countess, etc. already have extremely strong muscles in their legs, and they appears to be fluid athletes, so the S&C coach can't do much to train them to be less susceptible to ACL tears.

A more interesting question is what are all of them doing when they tear their ACLs?  If they are contact injuries, there is nothing you could do other than eliminate the contact.  If they are non-contact, are they participating in drills or movements that we should be avoiding? 

Shop Smart Sho…

February 13th, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^

Someone should look to see if the soccer and tennis teams are having ACL issues at a similar rate to the football team is, especially if the football injuries are happening in non-contact situations.  If those two teams are not experiencing issues, their training methods need to be studied by Wellman.  Those two sports put a large amount of load on knee ligaments.  

I know as a tennis coach that I do a lot of work to help strengthen and stabilize leg muscles to help prevent injury.  Most of my stuff I just take straight from our soccer coach.

joeyb

February 13th, 2014 at 12:52 PM ^

ACL tears aren't really predictable. You can do the same move 1000 times and then on the 1001st time it goes out. A good example is when EMU's QB, a few years ago, dropped back from under center and just fell to the ground from tearing his ACL. He wasn't hit and he obviously had dropped back tens of thousands of times, but, for some reason, his ACL decided it couldn't handle it that time.

Maybe a better way to look at it is to compare it to what happened to Kevin Ware. There is nothing that happened that would make you think his leg would break like that, but it did. ACL tears are similar in the fact that they are an anomaly and that there is not much you can do to realistically prepare for them.

Tater

February 13th, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^

http://blog.sidelinesportsdoc.com/?p=610

A statistical study done by Stanford's team doctor revealed some interesting stats.  He used stats for complete ACL tears from the 2004-2008 seasons on injuries reported to the NCAA Injury Surveillance System.  

The main takeaway: there are 1.24 ACL tears per 10,000 exposuires on natural grass, compared to 1.42 per 10,000 exposures on artificial turf.  The doctor was quoted as saying that "the rate of injury...is significantly higher on third-generation artificial turf."

The current Duraspine version at the Big House could debatably be called "fourth generation" artificial turf; I don't know what turf is on the practice fields.  

Dr Dragoo also noted that the injury rate during games could be as much as ten times that in practice.  

I am guessing we can just chalk this one up to bad luck and hope for a speedy recovery.  .  

 

ChasingRabbits

February 13th, 2014 at 11:03 AM ^

Seriously, I have been asking for a year now where Bielfeldt has a higher upside, football or Basketball.  I know you just can't start playing football and be great right away, but as of now it does not look like minutes on the court will be easy to come by, and 6-7 245 is not a bad place to start for a tight end, and he has 3 years of eligibility left.