Chubba Purdy has a high ankle sprain, Mickey Joseph says
Nebraska quarterback Chubba Purdy has a high ankle sprain according to interim head coach Mickey Joseph. Joseph didn’t say how long Purdy might be out.
The injury occurred late in the first half of Nebraska’s 34-3 loss at Michigan. Purdy broke out of the pocket to the right and scrambled for a first down. As he began to slide and give himself up, he got to his knees when a Michigan defender hit his upper body.
“Chubba has a high ankle sprain right now,” Joseph said.
With his top half now moving a different direction from his bottom half, Purdy’s right knee was torqued around at an odd angle. He immediately stayed down before limping off. He went to the locker room shortly thereafter.
Nebraska went to Logan Smothers at quarterback with Purdy out. Aside from a field goal — kicked on the drive that Purdy was hurt — the offense had no chance to consistently move the ball against Michigan.
Purdy finished with a 6-for-11 passing line for 56 yards, plus five carries for 39 yards.
Smothers, in relief, went 4-for-8 while throwing for just 15 yards. He tallied four carries for one yard, but that total does include sack yardage.
Nebraska OC Mark Whipple got injured in the first half, too
Whipple went down hard while on the sideline during Saturday’s contest against Michigan. The unfortunate incident happened when the Cornhuskers’ defense drove Wolverines wide receiver A.J Henning out of bounds. Unfortunately, Whipple was too close to the collision and ended up being collateral damage in the process.
ESPN sideline reporter Quint Kessenich provided an update following the scary collision involving the Cornhuskers’ coordinator.
“Coach Whipple is conscious,” Kessenich said. “He looks like he’s in pain, he’s actually rolling up and now he’s about to sit up, so that’s a good sign. He fell down on the turf and perhaps hit his head some way. But he never lost consciousness and now he’s struggling to stand up.”
He provided another update later in the half.
“Mark Whipple on the Nebraska sideline,” Kessenich said, “offensive coordinator who took a hit about five minutes ago, attended to. The medical staff actually looked at his left knee and he then reached and grabbed for the headset, because there was almost a changeover in possession, as if he were going to call the game. He put the headset on and now has stood up. You see he’s getting support here and it looks like the medical staff has got a good hold of him, so they’re not letting him walk around. But Coach seems eager to get back involved in this game. All signs, visually, down here are positive, in terms of Coach Whipple’s health.”
On3’s Justin Rudolph and Riley Gates contributed to this report