Terrible News--and the one thing that could sink us...

[DRU2012]

Well, that "sprained knee" did concern me--and now the other (now useless) shoe has fallen:
Ron Powell, a potential force on defense who was finally starting to meet and even exceed that "potential", has turned out to have suffered a torn ACL in the "Orange and Blue Debut" on Saturday.
The team release gives the nominal "4-to-6 months" as the general prognosis for recovery from successful surgery--but from unfortunate and all-too-frequent experience we know that this can vary greatly depending on a number of factors. For now, that timeframe of course puts his return at somewhere between late summer (mid-to-late August) and early fall (beginning of October)...No matter what, we'll likely be missing one of the assumed strong points on our defense until the season is under way--possibly longer. We can only hope that Ron will make a full recovery and fast, full and successful rehab--and can pick up where he left off so promisingly this spring by then
Meanwhile, as is noted in this thread's title, although we have a bit more depth across-the-board this time around, another "outbreak" of serious and unfortunate injuries on last season's scale is clearly the one thing that could derail all the hopeful promise of a Gator team that, until this news, showed every indication of being ready to "break out" in the 2012 season, to begin its return to elite status.
Now, though this is sad and scary news, it isn't "fatal" in and of itself, of course: it should turn out alright eventually for young Mr. Powell AND our defense once we get him back. It is the specter of a slew of such ill-timed injuries hitting key players that raises the possibility once more that what seemed our ahead-of-schedule, accelerating realization of this staff and team's plans and effort at returning to dominance, with so much going right, the choices and hard decisions paying off and the pieces finally falling into place, it could all be knocked off course and leave us scrambling.
Yes, I'm getting WAY ahead of myself, and you can't go borrowing trouble, "taking counsel from your fears" and changing the things that are clearly working in the vain hope that you can somehow "keep everyone safe". To play hard you must practice hard; you prepare your team by having them constantly work to push their own limits, and the rest is a matter of chance, fate, circumstance or WHATEVER--but after last season, we can be forgiven for being all too consciously aware of the pitfalls, all the things that are almost certainly beyond our control, but all the more so leave us frustrated, helpless and with a feeling of foreboding for that very reason.

 

[Leakfan12]

Hope he can one return before the season or if not, the other players need to step up. If he needs to miss the first game, I'm OK with that though I rather he didn't rush and think of his future.

 

[Escambia94]

Dante Fowler Jr flipped from FSU commit to Florida commit, because he wanted to play the Buck position and he figured he would get a chance to start early. Looks like he may get his wish. Lerentee McCray performed well at DE, and could step it up at the Buck instead of his new position at Sam (Strong side linebacker). Gideon Ajagbe is listed as RoPo's #2, but he is vastly undersized for the Buck.

 

[DRU2012]

Leakfan12, Escambia94
Hope you're right about the timeframe, Lf; personally, even in the "best shape of his life" and his demonstrated dedication of late to determined hard work to achieve whatever goal is put before him, I figure it could well be October before he is ready to go full speed once more. I agree completely that he take the time to get it right, be "all the way back" before stepping on the field in a real game (let alone once we hit the SEC-portion of our schedule).

I knew we had some depth now, E-, what with the defensive prospects coming in this fall AND the people already in there this spring--but hadn't really focused on the exact details yet...along with everything else, Fowler looks like an especially fortuitous recruit now, a chance for him and us arising early here in one example of "the way these things go""--but "potential" is often a far cry from "realization", from necessarily catching-on immediately (as Powell himself showed in his steady but far from instantaneous growth upon stepping in as needed so soon LAST year).
Still, sure glad we have as many possible alternatives as we do this time...Because of it, there's a pretty good chance that we'll be able to hold our own and weather the defensive difficulties that might otherwise eventually have overwhelmed us without them. As it is, the first third of the season could find us having to scramble a bit filling in gaps on defense, especially if there were further injuries in the secondary; the good news is that we DO have those options and alternatives, we WILL come through it, and we'll be building additional depth from invaluable experience for the young players who will be asked to step in during that time. To paraphrase Nietzche: "What does not kill us makes us stronger". Meanwhile, we cross out finger, hold our collective breath and hold on, hope for the best.