Defensive end Brian Cramer, a true freshman from Round Rock (Stony Point), Texas, will have to wait to make his debut with his new team after learning that a torn meniscus in his left knee will require him undergo surgery.

“I actually have no idea how it happened,” Cramer said. “After my junior year of high school, during our speed and strength training in the summer, we were doing this stretch where you pull your ankle to your chest, and it basically put me to the ground.

“The doctor said it kind of turned my meniscus around, but then it would snap back in to place. I kind of babied during my senior year, but I played through it. It kept bothering me a little when I got here, so I went in to check on the popping, and that’s when I realized it was torn.”

Cramer’s surgery isn’t scheduled until Aug. 6. (The Mustangs’ first preseason practice is Aug. 4.) The procedure was put off for more than a week, he said, for academic reasons.

“Since I’m taking summer classes, I talked to the coaches, and they advised me that it was best to wait, because missing two days of summer classes is like the equivalent of missing two weeks of school (during a normal semester),” Cramer said. “So we tried to get it scheduled for the day I get out of summer school, but they didn’t have any immediate openings.”

Cramer said doctors have told him the procedure will be quick and simple, and that he will be on the road to recovery very quickly after surgery. Whether that ensures he will redshirt the 2012 season, he said, is not yet certain.

“I’m not sure” about redshirting, Cramer said. “I imagine (that will be the case), since they said they want me to gain 50 pounds by next year. I’m going to work hard to get back as fast as I can, but obviously the guys in front of me a very good, very qualified players.

“The doctors said that if I’m going to have an injury, this is the kind to have — they said it’s almost like having a rock in my shoe. I think they said I should be out of there in something like 20 minutes, and then I’ll start on rehab right away. They said I’ll be doing (rehab) the day of (the surgery) — maybe that night — or the day after, definitely. The first week after, I can’t go back out on the field. The second, week, they said I can go out and sit down and watch. By the fourth week, I can start doing a little bit of rehab on the field, and by the sixth week, I could work in to drills a little bit.”

Cramer said his optimism about his ability to recover got a boost from the progress he made since shoulder surgery he had after his senior season at Stony Point.

“I just got done with the rehab from shoulder surgery,” he said. “I had it done right after my senior season, and I worked my butt off to get it back in shape, because I didn’t want to come up here and bench 115 pounds. I know what it takes to make it back, so that gives me more confidence that I can do it again.”

The coaches’ request that the 230-pound Cramer put on 50 pounds in a year sounds like a lot, but it is not without precedent in his family. His father, Tim, weighed about 270 pounds when he showed up as a freshman at USC. A year later, his son said, he had bulked up to about 320. Brian Cramer said he has begun his plan to make a similar gain in size.

“I think I already have an apartment in (the SMU weight room),” Cramer said. “It’s all about eating, working out and drinking Muscle Milk. I’m putting away four plates of food when I eat, especially at dinner, and I’m in the weight room, doing upper-body work. I’ll do that and calf raises and (work on the) quads in the first week, and then when I get back, I’ll still be in the film room with the guys. On ‘leg days’ I’ll be in with the trainers, but on upper-body days, I’ll be in the weight room with the guys, doing everything they’re doing.”