Eli Drinkwitz shares latest on status of star wideout Luther Burden
Missouri star wide receiver Luther Burden cropped up with an injury over the weekend and his status for the Tigers contest against Tennessee this Saturday is in question. On Wednesday on the SEC coaches teleconference, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz shared the latest on Burden.
After not practicing in full earlier in the week, Drinkwitz said the jury is still out. He needs to see what Burden does through the latter portions of the week to know what his status will be.
“Well I haven’t seen practice today, but yesterday he was in a green jersey and didn’t take a whole lot of reps and you know, we’ll just have to see how he progresses. So, I won’t know more about that probably until after today’s practice. But I would anticipate Friday is the first time I’ll have a real feel on whether or not he’s going to be able to play or not,” Drinkwitz said.
Burden suffered the apparent injury in a loss to Georgia over the weekend.
Burden is the leading receiver for Missouri with 64 catches for 958 yards and seven touchdowns.
Drinkwitz shared on Tuesday that Burden and quarterback Brady Cook were banged up
The Missouri injury report dealt a significant blow to the team’s hopes on Tuesday when Drinkwitz revealed one season-ending injury, as well as a few others that could impact key players.
Linebacker Chad Bailey will miss the rest of the season, while Burden and quarterback Brady Cook both appeared on the injury report.
“Chad has had a reoccurrence of that injury that he had in the summer,” Drinkwitz said. “We’re going to do what’s best interest of him, so he’ll be out the remainder of the season. He’s going to continue to help our team as best he can with being in meetings and helping coach the linebackers, serving them with leadership and captaincy.
“But he’ll be out the rest of the year. He’s going to go get a second opinion on what’s the next step for him. Hopefully we can get him healthy enough to pursue his dream of playing at the next level.”
Bailey played in five games after missing time at the beginning of the season. He tallied 17 tackles, a tackle for a loss, a sack, a forced fumble and a pass breakup.
The Tigers will have to move on without him.
It’ll be a lot more difficult to do so if some of the other issues littering the injury report aren’t minor. Burden is one of the best receivers in the nation, so getting him back will be paramount.
Drinkwitz ran through the rest of the injury report.
“Realus George will be questionable this week,” he said. “He got dinged up on the second to last play. Luther Burden will be questionable this week. Theo Wease would be probable, Brady Cook will be probable. Cody Schrader will be probable. Ennis Rakestraw will be probable. All those guys are dealing with different things that they’ve kind of battled through.
“I think Luther and Realus would be the two that I’m the most concerned about right now.”