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Brian Kelly shares update on Maason Smith’s status: ‘We’re going to be careful with him’
By Keith Farner
Published:
Brian Kelly understands Maason Smith is still working his way back from a knee injury suffered last year in the season opener against Florida State.
The defensive lineman, who is listed at 6-foot-6 and 315 pounds, avoided structural damage, and Kelly said Smith has a good relationship with trainer Owen Stanley about how far he can push it.
“He’s been out for a year and everything hurts a little bit more after coming back into it,” Kelly said. “We’ve got to be careful with him. … He had an ankle sprain, nothing that we were really too concerned with. But we’re concerned with everything when you have a player of his caliber, so we’re going to be careful with him.”
Smith was fully cleared in May. He played in 7 games as a freshman in 2021, and made 19 tackles (5 for a loss) and 4 sacks.
Smith was a 5-star recruit out of Houma, Louisiana, and the 247Sports Composite pegged him as a top-20 player in the country as a recruit.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
