Florida State WR Malik Benson carted off following foot injury in spring game

Florida State suffered an injury to one of their stars of the spring on Saturday. Dynamic wide receiver Malik Benson was rolled up on during a running play in their spring game. He needed assistance to be helped off the field and into the medical tent for a few minutes, before he was eventually loaded onto the cart and into the locker room for further medical evaluation and x-rays.

It appeared to be an injury to his left foot. We’ll see what reports surface once he has further medical treatment. The Seminoles suffered multiple injuries on Saturday, but Benson was a massive one. According to Warchant.com, the training staff had taken his shoe off before he went into the tent.

Benson got rolled up on from behind on a running play. Last year for the Alabama Crimson Tide, he hauled in 13 catches for 162 yards and one touchdown. The 6-1, 195-pounder averaged 12.5 yards per catch in his debut college football season. He’s been one of the biggest stars of the spring and many expected him to make a major impact on offense this fall for the Seminoles.

According to the On3 Transfer Portal Industry Rankings, Benson was rated as a four-star recruit and the No. 121 overall prospect in the country. He was also rated as the No. 1 overall JUCO player in the country for the 2021 cycle.

Benson was widely regarded as the nation’s top junior college prospect coming out of Hutchinson Community College in Kansas. He hauled in 43 catches for 1,229 yards and 11 touchdowns in 11 games his freshman year at Hutchinson. Following the season, he was rewarded with NJCAA Division I All-American honors. As a sophomore, he hauled in 923 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns, shattering the Hutchinson Community College school record for receiving yards (2,152).

In high school, Benson finished with 700 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns his senior year at Lansing (Lansing, Kansas). When it came down to choosing colleges out of high school, he picked the Tide over offers from Georgia, LSU, Oregon, and Tennessee.

Following the spring game, Warchant.com reported that Mike Norvell gave no further updates on the injuries on Saturday. Nothing looked “overly extensive” according to the FSU head coach, but they will wait for further medical evaluations.

One interesting note on the broadcast was the overall team speed of Florida State this spring. The Seminoles have 10 players that have been tracked at 20 miles per hour or more in practice via their Catapult GPS tracking software. That’s some impressive team speed and it’ll be fascinating to see how the Seminoles perform next fall.