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1) If you had told me on Saturday night that we would go to bed on Sunday night being told Kelly Bryant would not be limited in practice and we would feel awful about the injury news from the Troy game I'd have been shocked. But that's where we are. With the news that Cale Garrett is having surgery (tomorrow I am told) for a pectoral tendon injury, Missouri isn't losing its quarterback long term, but it's losing its best player for the remainder of the season.
Let's be clear: Kelly Bryant is the most important player on the team. The starting quarterback is almost always the most important player on the team and that's even more true when there's a pretty wide gap between the starter and the backup. But Cale Garrett has been the best player. It's not just the production, although the production (8 tackles a game, 3 interceptions, a fumble recovery, three touchdowns) has been staggering. Garrett is the steadying force on that defense. He's the one that knows where all 11 guys are supposed to be. He's the one cleaning up all the mistakes. He's the physical and emotional leader. And now he is gone.
On the surface, my first reaction was that losing a linebacker doesn't impact the win/loss record greatly. But I traded messages with someone who knows a lot more football than I do and he told me if you watch the film of the Wyoming game, Garrett is the only reason it wasn't a complete blowout. He cleaned up errors in that game most of us never saw. I'm not hitting the panic button. I think Missouri still has a very good chance to win nine games (more on that in a bit). But I also don't want to in any way understate how devastating this injury is.
2) I'm not 100% sure the play Garrett got hurt on. Some seem to think it was this
It does look like Garrett holds his left arm gingerly after that play. He did not miss a snap. I'm watching the second quarter right now. Garrett was on the field for every single defensive snap of the second quarter. On Troy's first snap of the second quarter, Garrett dives on the ground on a ball that came loose and could have been a fumble. He looks okay. bout four plays later, Garrett made his first interception of the night, a play on which he reached out with his right hand and tipped the ball to himself. His left arm was pumping as he ran toward the end zone. His teammates mobbed him after the play. There's no real indication he was hurt there. Afterwards, he was sitting on the bench and he looks like he's grimacing, but I have no idea if it is because of the injury at that point. That may be looking for something that isn't there.
On Troy's next drive, Garrett got his pick six. At about the 10 yard line, Garrett raises his left arm up over his head with the ball in it celebrating. There is absolutely zero indication at this point that Garrett is hurt or favoring an injury in any way. The SEC Network cameras followed Garrett off the field at halftime and he was talking to a staff member. He didn't appear to be all that upset or concerned. So I'm still not clear when he got hurt. There are two possibilities:
*The injury happened very late in the second quarter. He didn't play in the second half. We assumed, like Johnathon Johnson, Albert O and others, that was simply because the game was out of hand and getting chippy and there was no reason to put him at risk.
*Cale Garrett is superhuman, told no one he was hurt and played an entire quarter in which he got two interceptions and scored a touchdown with an injured pectoral tendon. I don't know if Garrett was on the sideline in the second half. We were looking for Bryant, but we weren't looking for Garrett because nobody had any idea that he was injured. But at no point on the broadcast did they make any mention of a potential injury. At no point was there anything that would indicate he was hurt. Hopefully we'll find out more tomorrow about when the injury occurred.
3) So what does Missouri do now? Mitchell wrote about that this morning.
