MORGANTOWN — Throughout the season, the Mountaineers have been dealing with the injury bug — especially on the defense side of the ball — and this week heading into the Thursday night Baylor matchup is no different
At his weekly press conference Tuesday, Head Coach Neal Brown announced another blow to his defense with the knee injury to sophomore linebacker Josh Chandler, which occurred Saturday at Oklahoma.
“Josh Chandler will be out for about a month,” Brown said. “I am not ready to say how many games that it going to be, he is going to be out for the Baylor game for sure. … A lot of it will depend on how does from a rehab standpoint.”
The 5-foot-11, 224 pound Canton, Ohio, native has tallied 49 total tackles, including 27 solo tackles.
“Deamonte Lindsay is going to start working this week and we are hopeful that he will be back,” Brown added. “And then Quandarius Qualls is the other one that got hurt during the game. We will see how he progresses this week I would say he would be questionable at this point.”
Luckily, it was not all bad injury news with Brown announcing that the staff anticipates a return of cornerback Keith Washington.
“We are running out of bodies,” Brown said. “Now the good thing is if Keith comes back as we anticipate, we have Keith and (Hakeem) Bailey back to start at corner. Nicktroy (Fortune) he has shows some good things in the two games he has started so he will continue to play. At safety, we will be able to play (Josh) Norwood there and continue our rotation which is basically Norwood, Sean Mahone, KJ Martin and (Noah) Guzman has played a little bit the last two weeks as well. I thought he played well in game on Saturday. Then at linebacker and bandit we have to make some decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours.”
“Shae Campbell, Dylan Tonkery, Zach Sandwisch is somebody who has not played a lot for us this year and is probably going to have to get ready and this is probably going to be a game Jared Bartlett could be a factor in,” Brown said.
Following the loss to Texas, sophomore wide receiver Sean Ryan had surgery for an upper body injury. Brown said he continues to improve after surgery.
“He is improving, he is going to start running this week. He will not play against Baylor and then after that we will be able to update it,” Brown explained. “But I am hopeful and optimistic he will return for us this year barring and setbacks.”
