Headlinin’: Baylor, world needlessly robbed of Robert Griffin for rest of ‘09

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September 28, 2009

• Bad News Bears face worst news. All of the preseason buzz about Baylor ending its 15-year bowl drought revolved around the presence of quarterback Robert Griffin, four-star recruiting coup, immediate Big 12 track star and most electric offensive threat at the Bears’ disposal in a generation. Even with Griffin, the odds were against Baylor navigating a relatively brutal Big 12 slate, against which it hadn’t finished better than 3-5 since the formation of the conference; as of Sunday afternoon, they seem suddenly hopeless:

Baylor sophomore quarterback Robert Griffin III and kick returner Mikail Baker will both miss the rest of the 2009 season due to season-ending knee injuries.

An MRI exam conducted Sunday afternoon revealed Griffin’s right knee had an isolated tear in his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The injury occurred during the first quarter of Baylor’s 68-13 victory over Northwestern State on Saturday.

Griffin returned to the game and finished the rest of the half with one of the best passing performances of his young career before facing the grim music. Without him, the Bears lose their ringer, the only BU player actually envied by Texas, Oklahoma or Oklahoma State, and essentially its only offense against those teams last year. Oh, and backup Blake Szymanski, the regular starter in the 2007 calamity that cost then-coach Guy Morriss his job, came out of the game day-to-day with a shoulder contusion for good measure.

Saturday’s other high-profile knee injury was in Alabama, where sophomore linebacker Dont’a Hightower will also miss the rest of the season with a ACL damage, a potentially critical blow to the smothering Tide defense. Unlike Baylor, though, ‘Bama has a little depth: The immediate response to Hightower’s injury was shuffling that led to one of the top players in the Tide’s star-studded 2008 recruiting class, Courtney Upshaw, moving into the regular lineup.

• Because we cannot look away … Regarding the quasi-debate about the legality of the hit that knocked Tim Tebow out of Saturday’s game against — what? You didn’t hear? Tebow got hit hard, dude:

Anyway, regarding the legality of the hit by Marcus Gilbert, SEC officiating head Rogers Redding said Sunday it was a clean shot. More to the point, in the same link the Palm Beach Post speculates that the Tebow Child may be back on the field soon — maybe a little too soon, actually:

He likely suffered a Grade II concussion, which includes confusion, and difficulty recalling the event, but no loss of consciousness. Athletes that suffer a Grade II concussion can usually return to action after a week of rest.

The Post quotes no doctors (or even doctor-like Web sites) in its diagnosis or the potential recovery time, and a week is sooner than even some Gator partisans would like to see. Expect daily updates ahead of UF’s trip to LSU in two weeks, whether you think you want them or not.

• Tommy Can You Hear Me? College football’s newest hot seat resides beneath Tommy West’s chair in Memphis, according to the local Commerical-Appeal following Saturday’s home loss to Marshall:

It has to be over. After nine seasons and a lot of good memories, the Tommy West era at Memphis will end after this year.

It gives me no pleasure to write this, but it’s not some great mystery. West has lost five of his last six games against teams from the Sun Belt Conference. He has abandoned many of the things he believed in to recruit players who were kicked off other teams.

And Saturday, before a crowd of maybe 12,000, his Tigers lost to a lousy Marshall team, 27-16, in what could be the last game of the year they’ll be favored to win.

West had the Tigers back in a bowl game last year for the fifth time in six seasons, even after an 0-3 start. So I’ll check back in a month, after four winnable conference games against Central Florida, UTEP, Southern Miss and East Carolina, before I consider cosigning that obituary.

Quickly … The story behind ESPN’s bizarre decision to send GameDay to Boston for Florida State-Boston College. … Oregon is still waiting for MRI results on defensive back Walter Thurmond. … USC heard a few boos from the home crowd despite taking an early three-touchdown lead over Washington State and not allowing the Cougars back in the game. … The forward pass: Still "fancy," 100 years later. … And that’s gotta hoyt.

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