Injuries: One Mustang returns, one done for 2012

Post by **PonyPride** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:58 am

I caught up with two injured Mustangs Thursday, with one report significantly better than the other:

• Linebacker Kevin Pope left Saturday's game against Texas A&M with a concussion when he and fellow linebacker Cameron Rogers collided while trying to make a tackle. Pope said he lobbied the SMU medical staff to go back in the game, but was told his afternoon was over.

Pope was returned to practice Thursday, and said that if SMU's game against TCU in nine days were being played today, he would be in the lineup.

"I wouldn't say I was knocked out (by the collision with Rogers), but my vision was blurry for about five seconds," Pope said. "I was trying to tackle their running back, and Cam came out of nowhere and we hit each other. I tried to talk my way back in to the game, but they (the SMU medical staff) wouldn't let me. I felt good after the game, and the next day, and I passed my concussion test. They just held me out of a couple days of practice to be careful, but I'll be playing next week."

• Quarterback Garrett Krstich's season is over after he broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot Wednesday, an injury that will require surgery Friday morning.

"I was just running an option play, faked the pitch and cut back inside, and I felt a big pop," Krstich said. "I jugged back to run the next play, and it hurt bad."

The redshirt freshman said he will undergo surgery Friday morning to have a screw inserted in to the bone and a bone graft, in which doctors will "shave some bone off the heel" and fill in where the bone is broken. He said he was told it will be "about three months" before he is fully healed, and that he would like to explore the possibility of getting a medical redshirt.

With Krstich unable to run the scout team offense, safety Hayden Greenbauer, a former high school quarterback, assumed the role. Greenbauer has played quarterback on the scout team before, especially in weeks when the Mustangs are preparing to face a particularly mobile quarterback.