This is devastating. For all the big blows we’ve had this year, this may be the most impactful in my opinion.

When it rains, it pours...honestly, this team seems snake bit when it comes to season ending injuries...

Brutal…

we started with 3 running backs, with Perez a 'luxury' that we could rely on for 3rd down, or as an occasional slot player. now, we're down to our starter (who is a bit on the small size) and somebody who has 9 rushes on the year.......to carry us into the playoffs!

Get 4 and 5 a few carries. Aggie Pride.

The only positive i see out of this snake bit year is that the younger guys are getting in reps they likely would not get otherwise. Hopefully that makes us tougher next season.

And it makes it less likely he bolts

Connors brothers?

I’m just relaying what my son told me going into the game, that they knew they were overrated and expected to win the game handily

They were great, Aggie legends. Excuse me if I’m wrong but defense has been pretty much the same all year. We’ve already seen the impact of Vargas out. Our redzone and short yardage is terrible right now plus he was our 3rd down back. Very similar to Lan in the pass game.

the incessant missed tackles that allow offenses to stay on the field are more a problem now that our two best tacklers are out. But yes Vargas is a huge loss for the offense, this season is cursed.

I have never witnessed the volume of season-enders or major injuries that we are dealing with here. As mentioned in prior posts, the football building as a whole needs to do a very deep dive. Look at your practice schedules, strength programming, rest intervals, training staff methodology, equipment/shoes, playing and practice surfaces, all of it. Look at how NFL teams prepare, same with the Dakota schools, look at what UCD has done historically, are we looking at too much BS data from the science side and not preparing these bodies properly? "Player friendly" training practices are a nice concept but are they actually hurting our student-athletes? I'm all for "cutting edge", new age data and practice/preparation recommendations, but there might be a time and place to go back to the way things used to be in preparing the human body for 5 months of this sort of rigor. Having played in an era where we started immediately with three weeks of two-a-days (not including the evening "walkthroughs") and a lot less scientific approach to strength training and athletic training practices, I don't ever recall witnessing a season of injuries like the Aggies are enduring. What's changed? I accept the fact that there is a very strong possibility that I am way off base here (I am venting), and I know Plough and the staff will evaluate all of this in the off-season, but this is brutal.

The 49ers have been beset with numerous, serious injuries this season as well. They have a huge investment in the very best training and care for their athletes but they still have been decimated by injuries. I'm all for looking at the things you have mentioned but I tend to believe that it's just been a terribly unfortunate year.

I do wonder, that considering how much bigger, stronger and faster players are nowadays, that we may have reached a "breaking point" where the human body just can't sustain the violent levels of contact on a consistent basis regardless of top notch training and equipment and, hence, more and more injuries.

Spot on. There is no question that the game is bigger/faster/stronger than ever. Stand on the sideline at any college/pro game and it is a freakshow. Teams will have years where the old "injury bug" influences the outcome of the season, and that is likely the case in Davis. I've been around a lot of football and just don't recall seeing anything like this.

I believe Coach Gould was hammered one year, and eventually the scuttlebutt rumor was that we had a new head athletic trainer who had a hair trigger on holding back players. (Gould's motto was like the military, "Next man up".)

Given the new all-year training, another reason why I'm usually in favor of playing subs, and subs when we're comfortably ahead in the second half. We seemed to load up a lot of reps for HR, MH, LL, among others. MH was here five+ years, how much utility were in the last drive or two in blowout wins? I understand LL was battling for post-season honors and the NFL draft. Others would chime in, "If you don't have ONE QB, then you have no QB."

Has the extra year / two of wear and tear come into play? Are our SA doing different strength training in our new facilities? (My guess is no.)

These injury-ridden campaigns tend to happen every 5-10 yrs across all contact sports. I wouldn't read too much into it. The last I can recall was under Gould as well and that was roughly 10 yrs ago.

Jeff Bourque has been running Strength & Conditioning since 2017, and the Edwards Athletic Facility/Bobb Biggs Field opened in 2022.

Not sure about athletic training staff. Based on the nature of the injuries, this probably isn't on them? By that I mean: the injuries seem more like acute/traumatic stuff that leads to the season being unquestionably (i.e. broken bones and torn ligaments), as opposed to nagging injuries that the athletic trainers failed to resolve or scenarios where the trainers make a judgment call.

Bigger schools get the injury bug too, but they have ~20% more scholarships and therefore more depth, so it isn't as dramatic.

For the record, no fingers being pointed, just thinking out loud. I am curious if there is something different in the preparation for 2025 compared to previous seasons, or if anything else has changed, but the staff will evaluate that. VERY interesting point about the "extra year" guys. If it is cyclical and happens occasionally, so be it. Our year in the turn of the football gods...

in any sport there is the tendency to use your best players most and this year we really haven’t been blowing people out early so you can argue they are needed for 60 minutes. But I wonder if there is growing pressure to pad stats of guys who have a chance at the next level to either help them achieve that directly or entice them not to leave for a greener pastures when those play calls or personnel choices are not really relevant to winning the game. Thinking of the Rex tush push and last year keeping Lan in during lots of garbage time.

Biggest difference is the 3 road games to start the season, all with late kickoffs, 2 with significant travel. Although, the injuries don’t seem like fatigue played a role

Yeah, I wondered about some of the late reps Lan took last season and held my breath. This team has had opportunities to blow people out and just have not been able to. I think the Rex running play was more about trying to do something cool for Rex than showing versatility, especially on a handoff inside the 5 yard line. He's really the most legitimate Undrafted Free Agent from this team, although several others will maybe get NFL camp invites (DE Psyk, possibly Simonson the LT). In my heart I want to believe that the NCAA will surely err on the side of common sense and grant both the Connors their season back so they can make the best business decisions possible for their futures.

Hard to speculate about causes of injuries.
We know about 8 of the 15 season ending injuries. Williams, Nava, Perez, Vargas, Garretson, P.Connors.R.Connors, Bell. About half the injuries either took place in camp, practice, or were unnoticed in the game.

I thought Bell is playing w a cast?

Yeah, this was years ago.

He broke his forearm while playing with a broken hand.

Nothings changed from last year in regard to off season training and practice schedules. They track strain using wearable tracking devices so they’re doing their best to reduce the load on the players bodies where they can. It’s just an unbelievably unlucky year injury-wise.

Unbelievable.