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The Utah State Aggies suffered a huge blow in Friday night's loss to BYU when starting quarterback Chuckie Keeton went down with a severe left leg injury in the first quarter. During the game school officials feared the worse that the Heisman darkhorse candidate tore both his ACL and MCL.
The school confirmed Saturday night that Keeton is down for the year with a torn ACL and MCL tear. Head coach Matt Wells released a statement on Keeton's injury:
"Very unfortunate situation for both Chuckie and our team," said Wells. "We've lost a great leader, great teammate and a very productive football player. I have all the confidence in the world in Chuckie, along with our doctors and staff that he will come back stronger than ever next season. As for the remainder of this season, we will regroup as a team and pick up the slack and continue to strive to compete for the Mountain West championship."
Wells seems confident that Keeton will back next season, and he could since recovering from an ACL tear can now take around eight months, and that would put Keeton's return in mid-June and months before training camp.
Prior to Keeton's injury he had 17 total touchdowns which was good for second at the FBS level. Now, the signal calling duties will go to junior Craig Harrison. Harrison looked shaky at times Friday night in three quarters of action where he completed just 18 of 41 passes for just 141 yards.