TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Although University of Alabama coach Nick Saban was a little vague on the specifics, mostly because he didn’t want to get them wrong during his press conference, junior running back Kenyan Drake apparently had surgery to repair a leg fracture and dislocated ankle.
Saban also announced that junior linebacker Denzel Devall had surgery on his ankle. The initial prognosis is that Drake won’t be able to do anything for 8-10 weeks, never mind any football-related activities, which means the rest of the regular season. Devall might only be out 3-4 weeks.
Junior center Ryan Kelly is expected to be out 2-3 weeks with a sprained knee. No. 7 Alabama is at Arkansas on Saturday (6 p.m. ET, ESPN), hosts Texas A&M (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) on Oct. 18, and visits Tennessee on Oct. 25 before having another bye week.
“I think it’s a very similar injury to what Derrick Henry had in spring practice a couple of years ago,” Saban said about Drake. “I think it’s very similar to a surgery I had when I was a player, where they sort of break your leg and your ankle’s dislocated and you actually pin the two together. But that’s not a lot of medical expertise.”
Drake sustained a horrific injury during the second quarter of Saturday’s 23-16 loss at Ole Miss, which caused numerous teammates to immediately call for the medical staff and Rebel defenders to turn away.
“I couldn’t hear him screaming from the sideline, but it didn’t look too good,” sophomore defensive end Jonathan Allen said.
“It was pretty bad,” said senior guard Arie Kouandjio, who obviously had a better view. “He looked like he was in a lot of pain.”
Drake had 22 carries for 112 yards and four touchdowns and five catches of 159 and two more scores.
Incidentally, Ole Miss coach Freeze announced Monday that defensive back Trae Elston will sit out the first half of this week’s game against Texas A&M for kicking Drake when he was down.
“We still want to prove that because we’re still going to work our butt off and we know we’ve got to step it up for Drake,” said senior fullback Jalston Fowler, who will write No. 17 on his tape like Drake did for him when he was out with a knee injury.
“We’ll probably dedicate the rest of the season to him because we lost him.”
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.
