The newest additions to the list are freshman LB/FB Cori Powell, who suffered an injury to the posterior crutiate ligament in his right knee, and LB Victor Worsley, who suffered a dislocated right elbow in the JV game on Tuesday night against Fork Union Military Academy. Powell's status is undetermined at the present time; Worsley is expected to be out two to three weeks.
It appears that the week without game action is coming at the perfect time to heal.
"This gives us some time, and I really believe that the majority of the players will be back, possibly starting next week" head coach John Bunting said. "But I still have very big concerns about a few -- Kyle Ralph, Ronnie McGill, Jacque Lewis, a couple of others, maybe Justin Phillips in that group too."
Some have wondered if the turf at Utah could have contributed to the injury count.
"I wonder the same thing," Bunting said. "I don't know. I've asked our trainers to look into that, and I'm expecting them to give me some type of report at some point as to how they tape--most of these injuries are foot problems, most of them. Of course, Ronnie had one going in, a little bit of a problem, but it got aggravated very quickly. It's hard to believe you lose two running backs in the first drive. I don't know if that's ever happened; that might be a record."
The team had a 60-minute practice on Tuesday and a 75-minute practice on Wednesday, but the action has been "light," without a lot of contact. There has been some work on technique and fundamentals, with a little preparation for Miami. It will also allow some reflection on the season to date.
"Tomorrow we will go back in a meeting session and take a look at everything we've done from a good standpoint in terms of concepts and scheme," Bunting said, "and we will take a look at some of the errors we've made. By viewing those and looking at the first seven games, we can get a better feel for what we need to work on, what we are doing right, and what we need to work on from a scheme standpoint to improve, particularly from the mental aspect."
The number of injuries is necessitating the exploration of possible position changes to fill the voids, but nothing definite has been determined presently.