Gather your collective sighs. Yet another key player has suffered yet another key injury. This time the injury bug has bitten for the second time, as Arizona All-American linebacker Scooby Wright will miss “several weeks” with another lower-body injury.
Wright injured his lateral meniscus in Arizona’s opener against UTSA, then returned for the Wildcats’ 59-30 loss to UCLA Saturday, a game in which he looked like a player fresh off an extended injury break.
And now he’ll miss several more weeks, this time with a sprained foot.
RichRod on Scooby: “He landed on his right foot at some point and sprained his R foot.” Scooby will be out several weeks with a foot sprain
— Zack Rosenblatt (@ZackBlatt) September 28, 2015
“If it was broken, which was a concern, we could have gotten a medical redshirt if we applied for it,” Arizona head coach Rodriguez said Monday. “Jamar Allah and Anthony Lopez suffered foot sprains in camp, and they returned in a few weeks, and with the way Scooby attacks his rehab, hopefully we’ll have him back in a couple of weeks.”
Wright collected 163 tackles (first nationally), 14 sacks (third) and 29 tackles for loss (first) in 2014, a season in which he won the Nagurski, Bednarik and Lombardi awards.
Freshman Tre Tyler will place Wright in the middle of Arizona’s defense.
As far as silver linings go, Arizona’s October schedule is about as easy as it gets in the Pac-12. The Wildcats visit Stanford Saturday, host Oregon State Oct. 10, visit Colorado 17, host Washington State Oct. 24, and then visit Washington on Halloween before closing with road trips to USC and Arizona State sandwiched around a home date with Utah.