Sebastopol, was just wondering the same thing??? How can this be. Downs was walking around in uniform the second half and now he's out for the year!!!

What a bummer. Just as he's rounding into being a dominant defender. Tough blow for the team and tough blow for Downs. Fortunately, he showed enough to get plenty of looks from the Sunday crowd.

Just pure speculation as I need to rewatch the play where Downs got hurt, but you can definitely have a serious injury, and unknowingly, still try to play. MCL or ACL tears are just two examples where athletes often try to come back and play, especially before the swelling/inflammation set in. Likely his knee was tested during the game, and it was bad enough where they suspected he had a serious injury and thus took his helmet away. Still safe to walk around, but not run or cut.


As a fan, I dislike the ambiguity of the injury information, but I completely understand the benefit of not having to disclose specific injuries, as attentive coaches can use that information to their advantage. For instance, if I knew an opposing player just sprained his ankle or his ACL, I'd try to make him cut to the opposite direction almost every time. Maybe someday Cal will be dominant enough to give that info out, but until then, I don't mind us being secretive like Belichick.

MoragaBear said:

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B.A. Bearacus said:

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Guys, is your gut telling you that it's gotta be the synthetic turf? As in, season-ending injuries happen to every team, but maybe there's something about our turf that makes such injuries more likely?

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The turf's new this year and is the same turf the Cowboys use.

The injuries were even worse on the old turf in 2013.

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I can't recall seeing an injury this year that is related to the type of turf.
The old school turfs were a problem when they were really "sticky" and feet were more likely to be planted or stuck in place when the knee got twisted or hit above it.

I feel like every year is unbelievable for us smfh

While luck is always a factor, when you start to see a pattern over several years, the systemic organization more than luck is a bigger explanation.

Unfortunately, it's not a problem that you can address by changing a couple of staff members, but something larger. But that goes into something much more complicated and controversial.

In defense of Cal, individually we have some good people who do what they can given the resources that we have. I wasn't the happiest with the previous S&C, and I haven't seen much with the new one. How players strengthen and improve coordination is more important than how much or even how hard imo. I'm hopeful that the new S&C changes can lead to improved durability, unfortunately adapting our athletes bodies takes more than one Summer season. Hopefully we'll see a bigger positive influence as S&C works with our players in the off-season.

I spoke a bit with the new S&C coach on the way back from North Carolina. We talked about injuries and he said, in essence, his regime should be judged not on whether players got injured, as injuries are part of football, but rather on how quickly players recovered from their injuries. I liked him quite a bit and appreciate his enthusiasm, but I can't help but wonder if he'd change that criteria at this point.

SoCal said:

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B.A. Bearacus said:

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Dammit, Downs out for season. ****.

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Damn...he's a Senior. His days playing for Cal are done.

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I was thinking during that game, before that injury, that he was going to be a beast in the NFL. Oh, well. I hope he makes it.

Is it just me or does it seem like when we lose a guy, he's out for the year? What ever happened to the "out a couple of weeks" injuries? I'm not suggesting anyone is doing anything wrong but holy smokes. When a goes down, he's done.

TheSouseFamily said:

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Is it just me or does it seem like when we lose a guy, he's out for the year? What ever happened to the "out a couple of weeks" injuries? I'm not suggesting anyone is doing anything wrong but holy smokes. When a goes down, he's done.

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"
"We must revive him for Cal's 'zona
game, Igor. The fans are starting to
get suspicious!" They're not buying the
"he's out for the season" reason
anymore. The Cal PR department has
to come up with a better explanation!"

Season ending injuries may not just be the seriousness of the injury itself, but the shadow of doubt regarding healing and rehab in light of "next season" and/or the NFL. I don't mean to sound like players are getting the best surgery and benefits of better, longer rehab to enable them to best heal for the NFL, but it's something I have thought about. Surgeries and rehab today are quite different than just a few years ago.

Another thing, talking to a trainer at my gym - the size that players now achieve, getting "bigger" and the incredible muscular development and strength may not always translate into stronger connecting tendons and ligaments. How do these get any "stronger?" I am not an expert, but I am sure that our players are doing a wide range of strength and conditioning, but the number of ACL injuries makes me wonder about tendons and ligaments that may simply fail due to the incredible impact that players have on one another as they grow more stout.

bross said:

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I know injuries are a part of the game, but this year has been unbelievable.

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Cal seems to get an unusual dose of unbelievable. Maybe that was the price for all the bounces we got Friday.

NVBear78 said:

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Sebastopol, was just wondering the same thing??? How can this be. Downs was walking around in uniform the second half and now he's out for the year!!!

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CRAP!!!

MoragaBear said:

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B.A. Bearacus said:

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Guys, is your gut telling you that it's gotta be the synthetic turf? As in, season-ending injuries happen to every team, but maybe there's something about our turf that makes such injuries more likely?

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The turf's new this year and is the same turf the Cowboys use.

The injuries were even worse on the old turf in 2013.

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Should we go back to grass? Maybe it would be less costly in terms of injuries?

B.A. Bearacus said:

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Dammit, Downs out for season. ****.

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Unbelievable. Seems like every season is a rash of injuries like this.

So sorry for Devante. Class guy showed what a professional he'll be.

Matt Rockett was also injured before, not on list above.

Can confirm, played on the old astro turf 1 year at DVC lol.

bross said:

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I know injuries are a part of the game, but this year has been unbelievable.

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UW lost two defensive starters for the season following injuries sustained last Saturday.

Yep, injuries are part of the game.

B.A. Bearacus said:

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Dammit, Downs out for season. ****.

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It's hard to believe we're not cursed

bross said:

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I know injuries are a part of the game, but this year has been unbelievable.

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It seems like we say this pretty much every year.

Maybe the coaches are strategically stockpiling redshirts

Who had it worse, 2013 Dykes or....?

BearGoggles said:

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bross said:

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I know injuries are a part of the game, but this year has been unbelievable.

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It seems like we say this pretty much every year.

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Cal fans are notorious for believing that only the Bears are impacted by injuries.

71Bear said:

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BearGoggles said:

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bross said:

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I know injuries are a part of the game, but this year has been unbelievable.

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It seems like we say this pretty much every year.

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Cal fans are notorious for believing that only the Bears are impacted by injuries.

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All fans.

Based on 2013 and 2017 so far, I wonder if changing S&C program has some inherent risk.

71Bear said:

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Cal fans are notorious for believing that only the Bears are impacted by injuries.

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From an article in the American Journal of Sports Medicine (2014):

Quote:

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BACKGROUND:
The effect of synthetic playing surfaces on the risk of injury in athletes is frequently debated in the orthopaedic literature. Biomechanical studies have identified increased frictional force at the shoe-surface interface, theoretically increasing the risk of injury relative to natural grass. This increase in frictional force is potentially relevant for the risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture, where noncontact mechanisms are frequent. However, clinical studies examining this issue have shown mixed results.

CONCLUSION:
High-quality studies support an increased rate of ACL injury on synthetic playing surfaces in football, but there is no apparent increased risk in soccer. Further study is needed to clarify the reason for this apparent discrepancy.

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Sebastabear said:

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I spoke a bit with the new S&C coach on the way back from North Carolina. We talked about injuries and he said, in essence, his regime should be judged not on whether players got injured, as injuries are part of football, but rather on how quickly players recovered from their injuries. I liked him quite a bit and appreciate his enthusiasm, but I can't help but wonder if he'd change that criteria at this point.

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This is only partly true.
A bad staff will get players back slowly, and these players may be more likely to get reinjured.

As a whole, in sports medicine you are judged by your ability to prevent injuries and return from injuries.
Return to play criteria will vary from surgeon to surgeon, and even from the rehab therapist/ATC who is assessing return to play.

And beware surgeons who promote fast return to play as a correlation to their skill. For example I've worked with surgeons who allow their ACL patients to start running at 2 months post surgery, and I've worked with even better surgeons (including the ones at UCSF who I think are top of the class) who won't let their ACL patients run until 3.5-4 months. Unfortunately in this day and age, you can look and find research that supports your opinion, hence the varying return to running or return to play criteria. In the end, the smart therapist will use a combination of evidence based practice, understanding of pathophysiology and biomechanics, and knowledge of movement science to determine the ideal recovery period, instead of just some recipe or default set time set by one person.

MoragaBear said:

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The turf's new this year and is the same turf the Cowboys use.

The injuries were even worse on the old turf in 2013.

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Unless AT&T changed to FieldTurf as well we don't have the same surface.

The Cowboys were the only other high profile team* to play on Matrix Turf and it looked similarly awful. Thankfully we finally came to our senses and went with the clear industry standard.

*seriously, this 'notable installations' list is pretty pathetic.

72CalBear said:

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Season ending injuries may not just be the seriousness of the injury itself, but the shadow of doubt regarding healing and rehab in light of "next season" and/or the NFL. I don't mean to sound like players are getting the best surgery and benefits of better, longer rehab to enable them to best heal for the NFL, but it's something I have thought about. Surgeries and rehab today are quite different than just a few years ago.

Another thing, talking to a trainer at my gym - the size that players now achieve, getting "bigger" and the incredible muscular development and strength may not always translate into stronger connecting tendons and ligaments. How do these get any "stronger?" I am not an expert, but I am sure that our players are doing a wide range of strength and conditioning, but the number of ACL injuries makes me wonder about tendons and ligaments that may simply fail due to the incredible impact that players have on one another as they grow more stout.

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Sorry to bore everyone with my comments, hope people aren't hitting the ignore button as this is obviously my passion as i'm an exercise geek

Your trainer brings up some interesting points. While players aren't getting THAT much bigger/stronger in the last couple of decades (this is starting to plateau but was very true the past couple of decades before), training philosophies haven't been helpful with developing "stronger tendons/ligaments or connective tissue"

For instance, when you do an isolated exercise like a seated bicep curl on a machine, you can target your biceps more with everything stabilized. However, if you do this same bicep curl with a dumbbell in a standing position, you have a lot of other challenges that your body must adjust to (shoulder and trunk stability, balance, etc). The latter exercise will be better at training the full "kinetic chain" and this is what's needed more often when trying to improve a person's coordination and dynamic structural integrity.

The same difference can be see when comparing the bench press to doing dumbbell presses. The bench press is more stable, and thus you should be able to push with a heavier total weight, leading to increased muscle mass. With dumbbells, you must stabilize each arm individually, which will take away from your ability to maximally exert yourself. You can go all the way to the other extreme by doing this dumbbell press when laying on a large stability ball (i'm NOT recommending this btw), so now your arms and your body are less stable

In short, people need full body movements and training to help reduce their risk of injury at their isolated vulnerable joints, and training for just strength or size isn't necessarily the answer.

I'm assuming Bankhead is injured until someone sees him play.
+1 on the sentiments about Downs.
That is a big blow right when we had some momentum.
It's even worse for Downs, who was building momentum going into the NFL draft.