The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (57 page)

Even before the creation of the BCS, injuries were commonplace among perennial powers. In July 1996, Florida State center Jarad Moon knew something was wrong moments after he snapped the ball during his first practice. Defensive lineman Andre Wadsworth slashed through Moon’s double-team. Fullback Drew O’Daniel saw Wadsworth coming and cut left to have leverage in the collision. But Wadsworth came at him low and O’Daniel’s cleat dug deep into the grass, forcing the fullback’s body to spin while his foot remained planted, tearing his MCL, LCL and ACL. O’Daniel never played football again.

It was an unforgettable lesson to Moon on just how fragile a college football player’s career can be. In his senior year Moon was reminded of that lesson again. In a game he was hit so hard that he went airborne. When he landed on his tailbone, Moon’s hips and back twisted, causing his L4 and L5 disks to bulge. Like a soldier, he was trained to endure the pain and play through the injury. But the pain was unbearable. He couldn’t even bend over, so he approached the team doctor while the game was still in progress and asked for something to dull the pain. He was not examined or X-rayed. The team doctor prescribed Cataflam, an anti-inflammatory drug, and sent Moon back onto the field. From that moment on, Moon said, he couldn’t play without the painkilling drug.

Despite the lingering neck injuries, Moon made it to the NFL. In 2001, he signed a three-year contract as an undrafted free agent for just
under $1 million with the Carolina Panthers. Despite an increased dependence on Cataflam, the rigors of the NFL proved too much. That summer, Moon left the Panthers before playing a down in the NFL. Moon was finally finished with football. But, as his chiropractor would say, football was not finished with him.

Today Moon feels every one of those college injuries. There’s chronic weakness in his left shoulder, tightness in his neck, his back locks up at least once a year. He still can’t bring himself to call it pain, though; he simply sees what he feels as “annoyances,” because pain, well, pain is a relative thing.

Athletic training staffs from Seattle to Syracuse were busy in 2012. According to data collected from injury and media reports, there were at least 282 season-ending injuries among the eight BCS conferences and independents between January 1, 2012, and January 7, 2013, the day of the BCS championship game.

Of the 282 season-ending injuries, 190, or 68 percent, were lower-body injuries. The 2012 data come as the most recently released NCAA figures, which tracked injuries between 2004–5 and 2008–9, found that 50 percent of all football injuries, both season ending and not season ending, were lower-body injuries. The 93 knee injuries alone made up almost one-third of the season-ending injuries in 2012.

Even with nearly three hundred season-ending injuries in 2012, there were undoubtedly far more, given the reluctance to release such information. For instance, conferences such as the Pac-12 do not mandate their members file NFL-style injury reports that list player injuries in various categories such as “probable,” “doubtful” and “out.” In the Pac-12, at least five programs—Oregon, Stanford, USC, Washington and Washington State—declined specific comment on injuries, sparking considerable controversy throughout the conference in 2012. (This happened while California became the first state to mandate financial protections for student-athletes at Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC who suffer career-ending injuries.)

“It’s just a competitive disadvantage for us when other teams don’t and we do, so that’s going to be the road we take,” said Washington’s head coach, Steve Sarkisian, in September 2012, referring to his decision not to report or comment on injuries.

Overall, while the SEC accounted for half of the teams in the final top ten poll, the conference also suffered the most season-ending injuries in 2012—with forty-six. (Alabama would lead the conference with six season-ending injuries in 2012.) The positions with the most season-ending injuries in college football’s premier conference came at running back and offensive line, reflecting the SEC’s physical, ground-and-pound schemes. On average, SEC teams lost at least one running back or offensive lineman in 2012. The Pac-12 was just off the pace with forty-four season-ending injuries, with injuries to defensive linemen and defensive backs leading the way.

Some programs in particular were challenged by losses of big-time talent at various points of the season. TCU running back Waymon James went down with a left knee injury in the second game of the season, a significant blow to the Horned Frogs’ attack. Texas’s standout defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat ruptured his right pectoral muscle during the Red River Rivalry against Oklahoma in October 2012. Tailback Fitz Toussaint of Michigan needed surgery after he took a serious hit to his left leg against Iowa in November 2012.

Arguably, the most significant discovery of the 2012 data could be called the October Surprise. It indicated—in a significant way—that if teams can physically survive their October slate of games, the odds of having a player go down with a season-ending injury are lowered considerably. Just 20 percent
of reported season-ending injuries in 2012 came after October. But in October alone, there were ninety-eight season-ending injuries. That works out to 35 percent of all season-ending injuries for 2012.

Jim Thornton is the president of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and the head athletic trainer at Clarion University in Pennsylvania. He said that the sharp uptick in October injuries was likely the result of fatigue and teams not adjusting their conditioning programs as the season wore on.

“Football is a taxing sport that is a great sport, but by October you have to realize that they have been through spring conditioning, summer conditioning, camp and a season that has hitting, collisions, et cetera, associated with it and they get tired,” Thornton said. “Subsequent to all this, the conditioning they get sometimes is not focused on what will prevent these injuries; rather, it is focused only on overall strength and getting ‘big.’ ”

He added, “There has to be a paradigm shift that is specific to prevention and performance enhancement rather than just throwing weights around. The programs that are not focusing on these concepts are most likely the ones that have a higher incidence of injuries.”

Among the eight BCS conferences and the independents, Maryland suffered the most season-ending injuries in 2012—ten. At one point the Terps lost all four of their quarterbacks to season-ending injuries, forcing them to use a freshman linebacker under center to finish out the season.

The most peculiar case of injuries may well belong to Rice. Starting off 2-6, the Owls reeled off four straight wins to finish 6-6 and become bowl eligible for the first time since 1961. To cap it off, the Owls won their bowl game against Air Force.

“We research every injury to our players,” said Dave Bailiff, the Owls head coach. “Our medical staff, strength coaches and our coaching staff look at it, and we try to do our due diligence to determine if there was some way to avoid the same thing happening in the future. We’ve not had a rash of one specific kind of injury, and some of the injuries that have hit us hard in the past have come on noncontact drills.

“We do our best to keep every player as physically prepared to play as possible, but injuries are always going to be a by-product of this game.”

Lying on his back at Williams-Brice Stadium last October, Marcus Lattimore wanted—and needed—to know his fate from the South Carolina trainers. He had to hear it for himself.

“I asked them right there, ‘Am I done?’ ” the South Carolina running back recalled. “And they told me, ‘Yeah, you’re done.’ ”

Lattimore knew the feeling. He had torn the ACL in his left knee the year before reemerging as one of college football’s premier running backs. His thirty-eight career rushing touchdowns topped the all-time list at South Carolina. The junior had also reestablished himself as the No. 1 running back on most scouts’ big boards heading into the 2013 NFL draft.

But now it was all in jeopardy.

On October 27, 2012, No. 13 South Carolina held a 21–14 second-quarter lead over its SEC East rival Tennessee. Lattimore, who ran for nearly six yards a carry against the Volunteers, led the Gamecocks offense, highlighted by a twenty-eight-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. The performance had been a return to form for Lattimore, who had accounted for just forty-eight yards on sixteen carries in consecutive losses to LSU and Florida.

He had burst onto the national scene in 2010, earning National Freshman of the Year honors after running for 1,197 yards and seventeen touchdowns, helping turn the Gamecocks into a force in the SEC and nationally pushing South Carolina to a No. 2 ranking before back-to-back losses to LSU and Florida.

With 4:55 left in the first half against Tennessee, the Gamecocks were at their own twenty-five-yard line, facing second and ten. South Carolina had called a power running play to the left.

“It’s one of my favorite plays, actually,” said Lattimore.

As the play unfolded, Lattimore missed an open lane to the inside, so he bounced it outside. Tennessee defensive back Eric Gordon hit Lattimore with his helmet on the inside of Lattimore’s right knee. Lattimore went down as if he’d been shot.

“Guy came out of nowhere,” Lattimore said. “It kind of felt like it was a dream because of how it happened. I didn’t even really feel it happen.”

Lying on the turf, Lattimore caught a glimpse of his right knee—then went into shock. “I had never seen anything like it,” he later said. In that netherworld, he said, he thought about his future, about whether or not he should even move. He remembered placing his hands over his face.

“All I could do was pray,” Lattimore said. “Pray that everything was going to be okay.”

The 80,250 fans inside Williams-Brice Stadium suddenly fell silent.

“Oh no,” said ESPN analyst Brian Griese.