Nine months ago, University of Florida linebacker Antonio Morrison lay crumpled on Legion Field during the Birmingham Bowl against East Carolina. A gruesome knee injury knocked Morrison out of the remainder of Florida’s bowl game. Even the most optimistic timetable for Morrison’s recovery predicted he would be sidelined for at least several weeks of the 2015 season.
Just nine months later, Morrison has started in every game for Florida this season, even earning a Walter Camp National Player of the Week award for his stalwart performance in Florida’s upset win over Ole Miss.
By Cory Burrell
Morrison has been one of the most surprising stories on an almost-equally shockingly undefeated Florida team. Since his speedy return from a debilitating injury, Morrison has played a vital piece in a hard-nosed Florida defense while doing nothing but improving his NFL draft stock. The senior linebacker will need to continue to show scouts and NFL teams his talent and potential more than outweighs the very real risk his history of knee injuries brings.
Morrison was considered the 10th-best inside linebacker in his high school recruiting class when he committed to Florida. He immediately found significant time on the field, playing in all 13 games his freshman year, including four starts, for an 11-2 Gators squad.
Morrison was expected to start full-time for Florida his sophomore year and build on a promising freshman campaign. Instead, Morrison struggled for a variety of reasons. Morrison started the season suspended for the first two games as punishment for two arrests in a little more than a month. His season also came to a premature end in a loss to Vanderbilt, when he tore the meniscus in his left knee. Morrison would miss the final three games of the season, playing in only eight games total.
Morrison rebounded from the disappointing sophomore campaign with a breakout junior year. Morrison became the first Florida linebacker to reach 100 tackles in a season since Brandon Spikes, currently a five-year veteran in the NFL, broke the 100-tackle mark in 2007. Morrison received second-team All-SEC honors at the end of the season.
Florida went 7-5 in 2014, a three-win improvement over 2013, mainly thanks to a Morrison-led defense that ranked 12th in the nation in points allowed per game. Unfortunately for the Gators, their season would not end on a completely happy note. College football fans saw one of the most gruesome knee injuries caught on TV when Morrison went down in the Birmingham Bowl, the same knee he injured last season.
After Morrison had his second surgery in as many year, he was expected to miss 10-12 months, including at least a month of the regular season, before he would return to the field, let alone return to full strength.
Morrison defied those timetables, willing himself through an intensive rehab schedule. Florida’s Associate Director of Sports Health Paul Silvestri said Morrison arrived as early as 5:30 in the morning each day and stayed until nearly 7 at night during his rehab.
“He’s a different breed,’’ Silvestri said. “He heals really well, really fast. He accepted it, then attacked it. There was never a ‘woe is me.’ I’m telling you, I don’t know that I’ll ever come across another guy who will do what he did.”
Morrison said his intense rehab not only helped his knee recovery; it also made him stronger overall.
“I didn’t feel any pain. I didn’t feel slower. I actually felt faster, more agile and I put on about 15 pounds,’’ Morrison said. “I felt good.”
When Florida opened its season against New Mexico State September 5, Morrison was back in the starting lineup, where he has remained as a force all season for the undefeated Gators. He is half a sack away from tying his three-year sack total from last season, while also already surpassing his tackles for loss mark from his breakout junior season. His 37 total tackles ties him with junior Jarrad Davis, a fellow linebacker, for most tackles on the team.
Morrison’s stunning recovery dismissed any initial worries that the senior was coming back too early, but his knee troubles will stick out as a red flag for any NFL teams looking to draft Morrison, even in the face of his solid performance on the field.
There is a growing perception knee injuries are becoming trivial to return from, in the wake of athletes such as Morrison, NFL star running back Adrian Peterson, and others recover quickly and return to play better than ever. The reality is knee injuries, while no longer a near-guaranteed career killer, are still a serious issue. James Andrews, known throughout the world (especially the sports world) as one of the leading experts on knee injuries, discussed the seriousness of knee injuries even today in an interview with Newsday.
“The last thing I’d want people to be thinking is people are coming back quicker and quicker,” Andrews said. “The few individuals that you know of who have come back quickly are what I call ‘superhuman’ athletes . . . There are only a few of those superhuman athletes out there. Their healing potential for some reason is much better than the average patient, but you can’t extrapolate their ability to come back from an injury to the average athlete.”
In the interview, Andrews mentioned a 2010 study done by the American Journal of Sports Medicine on knee injuries, specifically ACL tears. The study found only 63 percent of NFL players returned to play even a single game after ACL surgery. Two years following surgery, more than half the players are no longer in the league.
“That’s the real fact,” Andrews said. “It’s not a good injury to have regardless of how good a job we do.”
Even if Morrison is one of Andrews fabled “superhumans” when it comes to recovery, knee issues have become an even greater concern in an NFL struggling to stem the tide of concussions. New rules by the NFL aiming to reduce hard hits to the head and neck have had the unintended side effect of players aiming low to avoid costly penalties and fines for head hits. Even a defensive player like Morrison will need to be wary of low blocks that could once again aggravate his knee.
Still, in Morrison’s favor is an athletic body, a quality body of work (especially over the last two seasons), and talent that has him ranked by Optimum Scouting as the fifth-best senior linebacker eligible for the coming NFL draft. NFL teams may not be willing to bet solely on Morrison’s natural healing ability to provide him a lengthy and productive NFL career. If Morrison can continue to showcase his talent and prove his knee can withstand the rigors of football, he will get his shot proving his worth at the next level, knee injuries and all.
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