Good Tuesday morning, Fam!
Previously, we have dealt with the injury of
Andrel Anthony and I discussed several different circumstances that may be contributing to his inability to return to the Sooner lineup.
I have seen a few takes on the web/radio/podcasts where people have said that Anderson “quit on the team.” While I’m certain that these things do happen with players from time to time, we also need to understand injuries and why
Anderson may “appear to be okay” but not be able to perform.
All indications point to the injury being a possible quadricep issue.
If this is the case, we need to first understand the function of the Quad as it relates to athletic movement.
The quad is a
prime mover, a knee
extensor and hip
flexor. If there is an injury to this muscle group it will inhibit your
turnover and
force production into the ground during
top speed and
acceleration. There are plays in the game where you can clearly see his inability to accelerate in his normal manner.
It is used on every play in football. There’s no escaping it which makes it hard to recover from. Even though we aren’t positive which area of the upper leg is injured, there are a few interesting things we can take note of:
1. It is going to continue to be a “
Day to Day” scenario because it comes down to pain tolerance and movement ability. Some days will be really good and others not so much. This is why he may feel like playing in Tuesday but be a no-go on Friday.
2. It’s hard to heal without rest. Unfortunately this is one of those injuries that just needs rest to get right and OU just doesn’t have that kind of time on their hands. Maybe this
Jacobe Johnson move confirms that
Anderson may be shutting it down but it’s really tough to know for sure.
Provided below is a clip showing the quad actions during acceleration. You literally can’t escape its usage and OU has to figure out how to best navigate this issue with Nic.
Login to view embedded media
