UCLA Injury Updates: White Out, James X’rays Are “Negative,” No Information on Hundley

IMO Bruins took on one of the conference's most physical team on Thursday night. So not surprisingly they come out of it with some bumps and bruises.

Let's start with some bad news. Torian White is done. He has a broken born and torn ligament in his right leg. Per Chris  Foster of the LAT he is going to have surgery on Tuesday and be out for rest of the season. You have to feel for the kid, who was really coming along in his second year as a starter. Hopefully Torian will fully heal up and come back strong for his junior year in Westwood. White's injury means it will be Caleb's time:

The loss of White makes the Bruins a lot younger on the line.Simon Goines moved to White's left tackle spot and Caleb Benenoch played right tackle. That left the Bruins with two freshmen, Benenoch and guard Alex Redmond, playing next to each other.

"It isn't so much that Caleb isn't ready to play tackle, it's just you got two kids who a couple months ago were trading Pokemon cards in high school," offensive line coach Adrian Klemm said. "They know their stuff, but we were in a situation where there wasn't much communication. We had to go on silent counts and they couldn't rely on help."

Klemm has other options from our deep OL unit ,which he loaded up with superb recruiting last couple of years:

UCLA signed a loaded group of offensive linemen this past spring, but Klemm doesn't plan on burning any more redshirts to fill the depth chart. He wasn't concerned about Goines' knee pain - an issue that prompted his move out of left tackle earlier this season. Redshirt freshman Conor McDermott was a capable reserve left tackle during fall camp, and will likely see more snaps there behind Goines. Ben Wysocki is available at guard, and Carl Hulick can play both center and guard.

If "worst comes to worst," Klemm said, he'll slide All-American guard Xavier Su'a-Filo to left tackle.

As GB says relentlessly lines win games. I feel good about Klemm getting the new kids up to speed and ready for the Cal game at home, which will be a nice transition point to the most difficult stretch of the season.

Moving on to the injury front news is good (somewhat) for Jordon James. Per Jack Wang of Inside UCLA JJ's "X-rays were negative," per Coach Mora, but he "remains in a walking boot to keep pressure off the ankle." My guess is that coaches are going to see how he is feeling on Monday, but would probably prefer sitting him out for the Bears and go with the rotation of Paul Perkins, Steven Manfro (we will have to talk about this more later - or you can start now), Malcolm Jones and Damien Thigpen. I am excited for Thiggy's return in Cal game. But get well soon JJ.

Now interestingly there is no new information out of UCLA about Brett Hundley who was knocked out for a series after getting "smacked down" and in his own words had "blurry vision" during which he saw "two of everything." Here is the video of Hundley's comments after the game.

Folks who watched the game heard the announcers. They speculated during the game that he may Brett might have been going through a concussion protocal.  The tests that were administered on the sideline during the broadcast looked like they were having Hundley track objects with his eyes.  This could have been part of a concussion protocol, or it could have been a vision test similar to what's done at an eye doctor.  We just don't know at this point. BTW from what we have heard eye exam is not all that helpful for evaluating concussion, but it is useful for is evaluating other conditions involving the eyes (corneal abrasions, direct trauma, etc).  So there is that.

Watching the game, when Hundley called the timeout, it looked like he pointed to his eye and said "my eye" and later, when he was on the sideline, his eye was apparently visibly irritated.  He also could have gotten rubber pebble in his eye. He was not wearing his helmet for a period of time, but we don't know whether he simply removed his helmet, or whether it was taken away by medical staff.

Clearly, Hundley was having vision problems of some time, but we do not know for certain whether this was caused by problems with his eye, or by a possible head injury. Even if there was a possible concussion, we don't know the results of any tests or concussion protocols that may have been administered.

We take head injuries very seriously and Coach Mora has professed that he does as well.  He has not only talked the talk on this he has walked the walk. So he deserves a lot of benefit of the doubt in terms of his decision making process wrt to playing Hundley.

That said Coach Mora should address Hundley's status on Monday. For the sake of transparency it would be good for the program if Mora provides a full account of what happened to Hundley, ending inevitable and understandble speculation and nagging concerns about the condition of our once-in-a-generation quarterback.

GO BRUINS.