Senior CB Blessuan Austin to have knee surgery on Friday
PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Rutgers football senior cornerback Blessuan Austin has missed the last two games after hurting his knee again in the season opener against Texas State.
Against Texas State, Austin made an over the shoulder interception, spun around, and went down awkwardly. Austin walked off the field and didn’t come back for the rest of the game. At first, it was believed to be precationary, but head coach Chris Ash gave an update on the talented defensive back in his weekly press conference on Monday.
“Blessuan will have surgery on Friday,” Ash said. “They are going to go in and look at his knee and I’m not sure exactly what they are going to have to do, but they’ll go in and look at his knee and potentially re-do his ACL repair.”
Will he miss the rest of the 2018 campaign?
“Don’t know that for sure,” Ash said, “but most likely yes.”
In regards to possibly getting a fifth year of eligibility, Ash said he and Austin hadn’t had those conversations and it will be up to the 6-foot-1, 195-pounder from Queens, N.Y.
Austin tore his ACL in the fourth game of the year in 2017 against Nebraska and healed quickly.
“It’s tremendous. To Bless’ credit and to the strength staff and training and athletic training staff, they’ve all done a great job helping that young man rehab and to come back at full strength and compete at full strength in the sport that he loves,” cornerbacks coach Cory Robinson told TKR at Media Day.
With Austin having been out, the Scarlet Knights have sent out true freshmen Avery Young, Jarrett Paul, and Kessawn Abraham to play opposite Isaiah Wharton. Ash is hoping to finally get redshirt sophomore Tre Avery on the field as soon as possible. Avery has not played so far this season as he’s been banged up.
“We’re hoping to get Tre Avery back really soon. Tre Avery, we feel, has a chance to be an outstanding player,” Ash said. “He’s probably the fastest kid on our football team and during training camp before his injury we had him doing a lot of things from corner, to nickel, to all the over the field on special tea. We think he can be a dynamic football player and we really need him back.”
Ash said there are no plans to move converted safety Damon Hayes back to cornerback and defensive coordinator Jay Niemann mentioned the guys who are playing have to fight through.
“We have to keep going like we have been. Hopefully Tre Avery will be back soon. He did some good things during training camp before he got injured. We really liked where he was from a progress standpoint,” Niemann said. “We just have to get better. The guys that are back there are working hard. Our depth situation is a little bit touchy right now so they’re doing the best that they can do.
Young has played the second most total snaps on defense (183) at the cornerback position aside from Wharton. Young has given up some big plays in the passing game, but is getting experience. Having him solely at corner helps his growth too.
“Well, you look across the country and a lot of teams have a freshman, or two, or more than that who are playing. Fortunately for him he’s one the guys who is on the field right now who hasn’t had to have multiple roles,” Nieman said. “...From his standpoint at least he’s been able to stay in that one spot and continue to do the same types of things throughout training camp and the first three games.”
For his career, Austin has played in 27 games making 89 total tackles with five of them being for loss, 23 pass deflections, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery, two total sacks, and four interceptions including one pick-six.
In just 14 snaps this year, Austin compiled a 90.7 PFF grade.
Scouts from NFL teams flocked from all over to Piscataway to see Austin, who is regarded as an NFL-caliber defensive back.