With the departure of Justin Ferguson and Davonte Neal, incoming freshman Will Fuller and Torii Hunter Jr. will be given every opportunity to play catch-up this summer. For Fuller, that means a solid summer in the weight room with Paul Longo. For Hunter, it’s not quite as straight-forward.
A broken femur in January put the trajectory of Hunter’s college career in a holding pattern. A fluke injury during Army All-American Bowl practices was one of the most severe injuries suffered in recent years at the San Antonio based exhibition game. It was also a college football coach’s nightmare -- losing an elite recruit to an injury suffered after his high school career, in a game that’s essentially meaningless.
Hunter’s recovery has been tracked by many Irish recruitniks, made even more intriguing with the recent attrition to the depth chart. With a recovery estimated between six and nine months, getting anything out of Hunter in 2013 seemed to be a stretch.
Yet nobody told that to the wide receiver.
Thanks to a report from Christian McCollum of Irish Sports Daily, we’re able to see the future Irish receiver in action, well ahead of his doctor’s timetable.
From ISD:The 6-foot-1, 175-pounder from Prosper High School (Prosper, Texas) has been walking for almost two months, but just started attacking the physical portion of his rehabilitation about two weeks ago. As seen in the video below, the process is coming along quickly.
“It’s definitely encouraging,” Hunter Jr. said. “It makes me want to push more. When you start seeing results, you don’t want to stop. (My physical therapist) is going to keep packing on the work. He has no problem with that.”
There’s no more pain in the leg, just a lack of strength.
“You can tell it’s weak,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt at all. It’s just hard to do because it’s just so weak. You’re trying to flex that muscle as hard as you can to keep your balance or push off something. That’s why I make those faces because it’s just so hard to try to focus and get those muscles firing.”
If you’re interested in what Hunter’s doing, just three months after the injury, take a look at the video ISD had. Pretty impressive.
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[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/63380817 w=400&h=300]