Virginia Tech announced more unfortunate injury news for the Hokies. Brandon Facyson fractured the tibia and fibula of his left leg during practice on Sunday. He underwent surgery Sunday evening at LewisGale Montgomery by team orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tony McPherron. This injury is to the same leg he injured last year.
The Newnan, Georgia, native has been sidelined for most of 2014. He didn't participate in spring ball because of a stress reaction in his left leg. After spring practice concluded, a bone graft was performed to help the healing process. Facyson returned to the field and started at corner against William & Mary, Ohio State and East Carolina. However, as the season progressed he played less and less like the third-team All-ACC media selection that tallied 27 tackles, 5 picks and 8 pass break ups in 2013, and was more of a liability in coverage.
That was an early season setback for both Facyson and the Hokies. The former was poised for the national spotlight after a sensational freshman season last year. The latter seemed to favor an uber aggressive defensive scheme by way of a loaded box and corners playing long stretches of man coverage on islands. Chuck Clark and Donovan Riley replaced Facyson in various defensive alignments and at times their inexperience was evident.
Facyson hasn't redshirted and will apply for a medical hardship waiver. The best case scenario for Brandon in September was to get healthy and be full-go for spring football. However, for the second year in a row, he will miss spring practice, and is expected to return for the summer.
Comments
Maybe we should stop sending people to LewisGale....
OT I know, but I really hope that I never have to go to the hospital while I'm in Blacksburg. I've had a few friends go and their stories are frightening to say the least. I've had two friends that had concussions that went undiagnosed until days later when they had to be rushed back by ambulance and another friend with a kidney infection who got told she had cancer.
And my sister-in-law had an ectopic pregnancy that took them forever to diagnose.
I really have to wonder about the quality of orthopedic care these kids are getting. It seems like there's a pattern of problematic treatment and let's face it Lewis Gale is hardly a national center for sports medicine. I also think it's telling at Antone Exum went to Dr Andrews in Florida for his ACL repair.
These guys deserve to get the very best care we can get them even if it means sending them out of state.
ACL tear != broken bones. Most orthopedic surgeons all do the same stuff on a bone break. Ligaments are a whole nother story IMO.
Not disagreeing that VT seems to need some better sports medicine guys though.
I believe I have heard of a couple other hokie football players opting to get surgery elsewhere. I know Malleck got his surgery in NYC by the NY Giants doctor and I believe there was another player who got work done somewhere else. Seems telling...
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the guys just wanted to get work done closer to their own homes. Malleck is from Jersey, right?
I mean we are in Southwest Virginia. We will never have the best doctors in the US. If I was injured and an athlete competing at their level I would find the best doctor I could afford also.
nope and apperantly its okay
from my questioning
http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2014/november/3/relationship-beamer-te...
Darn. Brandon, Hokie Nation wishes you the best in your rehab and recovery. Get Well and Return to the field, sir.
Players like Facyson are what I love about Hokie football. Under the radar in high school with a nose for the ball. I really hope he gets 100% healthy. I'd love to see him back on the field on game days.
How about that according to 247 he chose vt over offers from GT and Mississippi ST
Best wishes to Brandon for a speedy recovery. What awful news for a great kid who is just having a horrible string of luck.
Do we know if the injury happened during contact with another player or just in a drill?
Meanwhile Whit is hard at work developing next year's jersey...
Big ol' Turkey Leg for this one! I laughed my **s off! Thanks!
Either that is some serious padding....or Sam Rogers is now wearing glasses.
As long as it's not all orange
It really makes me wonder if the medical staff/trainers/S&C staff need to be reevaluated? I feels like a lot of guys have spent a ton of time injured with either slow recoveries or too quickly getting put back out on the field. Also feels like some issues wait to get resolved instead of immediately getting fixed. I understand we aren't medical professionals, but the trend of injuries/recovery here is getting a little silly.
I agree but then I am not a doc either. I have broken a few bones in my life and after healing, they were actually stronger. Maybe BF is better off now. Clean break(s) without the BS bone graft crap. I hate to say that because I know it hurt like hell and will for a while. Medicine might be to artsy fartsy now. Do the graft and get him back faster? AS far as our medical support goes take a look here and these are just a few:
Kevin Jones (ankle)washed up in 2 NFL seasons
Suggs (shoulder) pretty much the same.
Wilson (neck) 2 seasons
Williams (knee) 1.5 seasons
Evans (knee) never did shit
These are only the running backs. Shai now may be done for good when he busted up the same knee and Marshawn might be in the same boat. WTF!
Correct me if wrong. Going on memory here!
Wilson's injury has nothing to do with playing here. It is congenital. Kevin Jones was in the NFL for 4 seasons. Also, I don't think his injuries were caused by our staff. He hurt himself in the NFL.
Suggs had several injuries in the NFL as well, none of which were incurred in college. His ACL wasn't the major issue (although he lost a half-step following the injury, it wasn't career ending).
Running backs, especially running backs coming from a run-heavy offense, getting injured is extremely common. What good NFL running back that's been around hasn't missed time for injury? It's unfortunate but true.
Don't think Shai's injury has anything to do with medical staff. He got hit on the side of the knee while his leg was planted.
I agree. I wonder is s&c needs to be looked at. Part of their job is injury prevention. The past two years especially we seem to have had a rash of injuries that kill us. Not only is it huelrting the team but it hurts these kids future if they have any chanc of going pro. Facyson defiantly has the ability to play at the next level but what are his chances now after being hurt majority of this year and likely not starting next fall either (if edmunds injury timeline is any indication). I feel bad for him. I want him to do well he is one of my favorite Hokies. Best wishes to him.
Agreed, what is going on right now with our strength and conditioning. I'm not saying Facyson's injury could have been prevented with more stretching or anything, but we seem to have an abnormally high number of kids injured this year.
This sucks hope we get him back for next season or if he should seat a season out to let it get better
Having second thoughts Tolliver?
My question is this, if he was seeking a medical redshirt, why was he practicing to begin with?
Not being healthy enough to play in games doesn't mean you can't do conditioning work/drills/other practice stuff. I'd imagine taking a year off from football would be really bad for development
I get what you're saying, but it sounds like a pretty serious break. Not something one would normally get from conditioning drills. Then again, I'm no doc and it could have been non-contact. Especially, given his prior injury. All I'm getting at is if he was doing anything contact I think we have to question his/coaches decision.
Could've been anything: planted wrong, got tied up with another guy during a drill, had a LB come in from the drill next to him and take out his leg, whatever. Since none of us were at practice to see it, we probably won't ever figure out exactly what went wrong unless the coaches tell us.
Either way, you can't fault the coaches for trying to help the kid get back in shape and keep his technique sharp. The injury he had was making him a step slow all year - no one said anything about the structural integrity of the bone (both bones actually). I highly doubt the coaches would have made/let him do something if they thought there was a significant risk of injury (moreso than the typical risk, which is fairly high to begin with).
He is so, so good. We really need to get him back to healthy. So many options for our defense next year with a healthy Facyson and Fuller on the corners.
Aside, prior to this injury, I was thinking of Facyson as a situational WR. What our WR corps lacks is a bigger guy with ball skills (with Bucky after TE). Facyson could fill that role for 15 snaps a game. If he would stop breaking stuff.
I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of Facyson taking snaps at WR, but he's listed as 6' 2", 189, which is basically the same size as Phillips. It'd be nice to have a WR with DJ Coles or Marcus Davis measurables. I'll be very interested to see what Kendrick Holland does this spring.
We actually have a ton of WRs that aren't seeing the field much, such as Stanford, Parker, Meyer, Asante, and probably some others. I don't think we should add to that crowd.
Really sorry to hear this. Brandon's had a horrible run of luck. Leg, concussion, and now leg again (the same one?) Came in relatively unheralded, and proved to be an exceptional student and athlete. One of my favorites on this team, and I wish him a full and speedy recovery.
I feel for the kid but it makes you wonder.... With him having no shot at playing this season (if you're aiming for a medical redshirt), why as a coaching staff even push him to the point where this would be possible?
Push him how?
You have knowledge of what he was doing?
Tell us, spit it out.
For all we know he tripped over a ball.
i think he's wondering why the dude was practicing.
Probably to keep him in football shape. He hasn't played a game since ECU (9/13), and because of the amount of time his original injury was going to cause him to miss, he was likely to take a medical hardship redshirt. So, even if he was healthy he wouldn't be playing right now. Don't get me wrong, I have no idea how he has been recovering from his original injury, I'm just throwing this out as a hypothetical. That IF he were healthy then the coaches would want him to continue practicing like normal to keep him in shape and develop his game.
With him breaking both bones in the leg, I hope this was not as serious as some of the ones we have seen live on TV. It bothers me because of how long it took Edmunds to come back with about the same recovery time. I was really looking forward to Brandon being back on the field next season. I hope he can at 100%.
Does anybody know how severe the leg break was?
And for people questioning the training staff, please stop. There is no training in the world to prevent these injuries. And he was practicing because he was healthy enough to practice. Was he supposed to just sit and watch all year just because he was taking a redshirt?
I agree, but is there a difference between questioning and second-guessing? Does anyone keep useful statistics on college football injuries? Is there a way of knowing whether we are seeing a scary trend or a statistical anomaly or if it just looks terrible to us because these are our guys? Is there an auditor of some sort that checks up on the medical staff from time to time to make sure they're at the cutting edge?
How can a medical staff prevent a broken bone in possible the most rugged contact sport that exists? Because I was seeing these questions when Trey broke his collarbone too.
Almost every program goes through these seasons in which a ton of their players get injured. Maryland had it two years ago. It seems like this is our year, unfortunately.
When you've had the insane stretch of injuries that the Hokies have had, I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder if the people responsible for keeping players on the field are doing the best possible job.
Dadgumit! We just can't seem to get a break (no pun intended) when it comes to injuries right now. No, he wasn't going to be playing anymore this season but now this affects at least the start of next season. With Fuller and Facyson on the corners that could help our new safeties develop (whomever they end up being). I wish him a full and speedy recovery and hopefully, he won't miss much time (if any) next year. We all want to see the same player we saw last year and wish this young man the best.
I'm not so sure I'd blame our team medical folks. I mean I don't think our university would willingly put dudes back on the field knowing there was a strong chance of reinjuring themselves because they haven't fully recovered. I imagine it goes like this: "Hey according to modern medicine, biology and science you're good to go. It's gonna hurt some but you're cleared" Even with all the technology we have today everybodies body reacts differently. Not everyone will recover like Adrian Peterson or Marshawn Lynch.
Feel better Brandon. I hope you have a speedy and pain free recovery.
Wasn't his original injury stress fractures? Those things take for freaking ever to heal. Have a friend on the softball team who missed pretty much an entire year because of them. It doesn't take much to make those worse either. IIRC that's what happened to that Louisville player a couple years ago in the tourney.
This is a great occasion to ask this group a question my buddy posed to me the other day.
So, who pays for medical care (surgeries, etc.) for college athletes?
I don't know the answer, but I'm assuming the university has a group insurance policy that covers all scholarship athletes. And, the premiums are probably included in the scholarship grant each player receives.
But, that's just my guess. Does anyone actually know how this works? Thanks!
Well f-k. Seriously, it tears me up that noble and outrageously talented athletes like Face and DW have to deal with this shit. They deserve better. So much better. Athletes like them (specifically) absolutely need to be on the field more frequently.
Can someone please check if there is something in the water?! Like seriously how do so many guys get hurt?!!! Coincidence... maybe... but "c'mon man"