[Update] Brett Hundley Will Miss Part of UCLA's Fall Camp From Knee Surgery: Red-shirt to Follow?
by Achilles on Jul 26, 2011 12:31 PM PDT
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Last April we twice wondered if Brett Hundley would redshirt.
That possibility inched closer to reality with today's news that Hundley had torn his meniscus playing basketball. The injury mandates surgery and Hundley will miss at least the first half of fall camp. Jon Gold has the story on his blog and so does the L.A. Times.
Hundley, you surely recall, graduated early from his Arizona high school and enrolled at UCLA in time for spring practice. What this does to his status this season remains unclear. On one hand, he can redshirt and come back next year with four years of eligibility left. But that would derail Rick Neuheisel's plans, which rumors suggest had Hundley playing 10-15 plays a game in a package designed to play to the freshman's strengths. Much also depends on the health of returning quarterbacks Kevin Prince and Richard Brehaut.
Update (A): From ESPN LA:
"He hurt it playing basketball," Neuheisel said, "but he'll be back before long. I'm excited that he had as much work as he did prior to that." [...]
Neuheisel said the injury doesn't mean Hundley will automatically be redshirted.
"I think he'll still make an impact this season," Neuheisel said.
Anyway you look at it, this is not fun news in the short-term. It sucks. We wish Hundley a healthy and speedy recovery. We hope he is not rushed because we believe he can have a happy and successful career at UCLA. Who knows. Red-shirting may turn out to be a blessing in disguise and overall a good thing for the program in the long term.
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You gotta be kidding me...
Cursed QBs much UCLA?
Hope Hundley recovers soon and FULLY recovers and never hurts his knee or toe or leg or jaw or any body part again.
Oh noes!
Hopefully this doesn’t auger the start of another UCLA QB being continually hurt. Injuries happen in sports. Hope he recovers well & fast. I really hope the coaches don’t let him play until he’s COMPLETELY healed.
GL Brett….
Wow, yikes
Another injured Bruin QB. I hope he has a smooth and successful recovery.
"Still make an impact" or Redshirt time?
Guess the scope on Wednesday will give us some idea.
If it weren’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
I would assume he redshirts.
There’s not a lot of sense bringing him in without spring work, then trying to work him in during the season. We have two quarterbacks who can play, let the kid sit.
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
Following on that
I think the success and health of Prince and Brehaut will have a lot to say about whether Hundley is rushed back to playing status. If both are healthy and one of them is effective, we will have the luxury of redshirting Hundley. But if the past is any indicator, Neuheisel’s hand may be forced.
Not exactly sure, but a team can apply the redshirt tag a long way into the season, right?
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
Isn't it entirely based upon whether they play or not?
You could sit someone until a team’s bowl game and choose to play them, or sit them and have the year be a redshirt year. Obviously that would be a messed up thing to do to a player though!
I think that answers my question
As long as Hundley doesn’t play, he can still redshirt.
So if Prince and/or Brehaut are getting the job done and we’re halfway or more in the season, we can still decide then to make this a redshirt year for him.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
Agreed.
A torn meniscus isn’t a big deal, and it hopefully secures a RS year for Hundley. I was hoping that he would RS anyway.
by AllHailMightyBruins on Jul 26, 2011 1:47 PM PDT up reply actions
I hope he gets well soon
But i also want him to redshirt so he matures and helps bring this team back to the level it used to be
Would somebody please find a Gypsie
to remove the freakin’ curse?
by KnudsenRockne on Jul 26, 2011 4:15 PM PDT up reply actions
Do you really want to take that position?
Seems pretty absurd to me.
by AllHailMightyBruins on Jul 26, 2011 1:45 PM PDT up reply actions
Agreed
Almost any physical activity could result in injury. We have to remember that Hundley is a young man who wants and needs to have fun. And basketball is great way to stay in shape. This is a relatively minor injury for our (at the moment) third string QB who most feel (including me) should red shirt this season. Although I want CRN to succeed this year, because he has to if he wants to keep his job, I do not want to burn a year of eligibility on a player very capable of taking UCLA football back to the national prominence. I am not saying this injury is a blessing, it is not. I do, however, feel we need to put this injury in perspective.
I'm just hoping
CRN doesn’t feel any pressure to rush him back to health. Nobody should. Let this thing fully, 100%, without a doubt, all the way heal before they give him any serious work. We’ve seen what happens to our current QB with a big heart who doesn’t like to take things slowly.
I would much rather he play basketball
than drive (and crash) an ATV, or drive drunk, or assault women, which is to say, act like a Trogan football player.
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
Sorry, please take my comment as seriously as you would take "curses"
Unfortunately, that might be a bad example.
I thought you must have been kidding.
We all fell into the sarchasm.
by AllHailMightyBruins on Jul 26, 2011 3:20 PM PDT up reply actions
The internets
deserve a new emoticon or symbol. The number of times sarcasm falls flat on its face online is just absurd. Where’s the geek squad when you need them?!
B.F.
Hoping for a full and speedy recovery
But as an aside, wonder what shoe brand he was wearing? At least we can’t blame it on Spaulding Field.
You're ignoring the fact
that Spaulding field has all playing surfaces at UCLA in its sway. They are all in cahoots to try to injure every athlete on campus. Have you seen Bruin Walk with all those longboard/skateboard/bike people crashing?
In all seriousness, I believe there is something wrong with Spaulding field that is injuring our players.
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
I got hit by a guy on a bike flying down Bruin Walk.
He was injured far worse than I. I don’t know how it happened, but his front tire hit my leg, and sort of buckled me. I was wearing pants but still got a burn on my calf from the tire. The rider went over the handle bars and landed face first.
by AllHailMightyBruins on Jul 26, 2011 3:18 PM PDT up reply actions
The worst I've seen
was with a skateboard. The guy almost got to the flat by Pauley, but one of the people coming up the hill wasn’t looking, and he had to dodge, only to run straight into those 2-foot tall brick bench-thingies right next to the entrance to Drake, at the southwest corner of the IM fields. Kid had EMS there pretty quick.
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
Depending on the timing/dates of this incident,
that very well might have been my old roommate you saw.
A broken collar bone, cheekbone, arm, and pretty nasty abrasions across his face and upper body was the final end result; doctors said he was lucky not to have split his head open…
Crazy stuff indeed.
B.F.
Whether it was your roommate or not...
Ouch.
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
by OswegoBruin on Jul 27, 2011 10:36 AM PDT up reply actions
this could very well be the case
I mean, CBH complained about the floor quality at Pauley, it’s entirely possible we have suboptimal surfaces in all our facilities.
Just redshirt the guy...
If Prince and Brehaut both get hurt, chalk it up as bad karma and go with one of the other qbs and call it a season. It would be unfair to risk an inexperienced Hundley just so Neuheisel could save himself…and there is no guarantee Hundley alone is going to save him. If things are so bad that Neu feels the need to risk Hundley, maybe it is not in the stars for Neu to be HC here.
On the other hand, I think the combo of Prince/Brehaut, along with all our other talent, is more than enough to turn this pgm around to a minimum 8-4 season with a decent bowl.
I agree with the redshirt...
With the news coming out of spring camp that Crissman was looking strong, Prince and Brehaut healthy, why would we even risk playing this kid. We also have a juco transfer and Bell on the roster. He can’t be put in a position as the one to “save” Neus job.
interesting short-term/long-term issue...
…. which is exacerbated by CRN having less than 100% job security. When a lot of people are seeing this as a ‘show me’ or at least ‘show me SOMETHING’ season for CRN, it increases the pressure on him to bring Hundley in this year if he feels that would help the team to an extra win, or present an optimistic view of the future. The more pressure CRN is under, the more it makes sense to try anything for the short term and worry less about whether Hundley will be around in 2015 as a RS senior.
Hopefully this can be rendered moot if we get off to a strong start with solid QB play, and pass the ‘eye test’ out of the gate.
Exactly!
the #1 thing we need (Hundley needs) is solid, consistent QB play so there’s no temptation to push Hundley onto the field when he’s < 100%
A lot of Prince’s reputation of being injury prone may be from the coaches doing this.
by KnudsenRockne on Jul 26, 2011 4:23 PM PDT up reply actions
Hundley
We already knew he wasn’t got to be a “savior” his freshman season, at best a situational qb to make defenses spend some time to consider when preparing for us. Injury or not, he probably won’t be the one that would make or break CRN’s season anyway.
One or two more OL injuries though and I will cry……
Tebow also wasn't a savior his freshman year
but was an instrumental guy ‘off the bench’ in redzone situations before becoming the starter the following year.
The other thing is that if you showcase him a bit this year, it might make CRN’s bosses think more positively about Hundley being the savior in CRN Year 5, and thus they may be more likely to cut CRN some slack.
But as I say – hopefully CRN’s coaching will be apparent in the product on the field and the performances will be good enough that he doesn’t think he needs to play Hundley. We’re not expected to compete for the conference title this year, but really need to take steps back to respectability.
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