Ad Disclosure
Matt Rhule says Nebraska WR offered to postpone knee surgery to continue signaling duties
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Matt Rhule revealed Thursday that Nebraska might have to alter how the team signals in certain things with the offense for the rest of the season. That comes as a result of a devastating knee injury to Elliott Brown.
Brown is a wide receiver who has appeared in 2 games this season but stepped into a role to help signal plays with the offense for WRs coach Garrett McGuire. According to Rhule, Brown tore his ACL in a Wednesday practice last week but still traveled to Michigan State and signaled from the sidelines the entire game.
“We’ve had some unique challenges kind of around getting plays in, things starting to come. Elliott Brown really started to take on that role for us as Garrett went up, and Elliott Brown who is a coach on the field and an excellent football player was signaling for us. Elliott unfortunately had a pretty bad knee injury last Wednesday,” said Rhule. “On 2 days notice with a torn ACL and a knee brace, goes to Michigan State and signals, standing on the sidelines of the field the entire game.”
Rhule went on to say that Brown was scheduled to undergo surgery this Thursday, but the WR offered to put it off until the end of the season in order to continue his role. The head coach put a quick stop to that, telling Brown to get his surgery now.
“(He) comes to me this week and says ‘Coach they want to do surgery on Thursday, but I’ll wait until the end of the year so I can signal and continue to help the team.’ Which would mean it would push into training camp, and I said absolutely not,” Rhule explained. “Get your surgery. So, Garrett might have to come down now just to make sure we’re getting wideouts into the game and we have a bunch of young wideouts so it’s just making sure they know what’s happening.”
While the coaching staff might have to juggle things, there’s no denying it will be better in the long run for Brown to get his surgery and rehab rolling heading into the offseason. However, it is admirable that Brown was looking to put the team first to finish the season.
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.