Elliott clarifies Kam Robinson injury and recovery timetable

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Tony Elliott revealed the details of star linebacker Kam Robinson’s injury on Monday and offered somewhat of a timetable for just how long the third-year standout from Tappahannock may be missing from Virginia’s lineup.

Elliott said that during practice No. 7 of training camp, the first day of full-pads contact, Robinson took a shot to the collarbone and reported it. The fact that Robinson told coaches about the injury is significant because he is the kind of player that plays hurt.

Recently, UVA defensive coordinator John Rudzinski discussed just how tough Robinson is, noting how he played hurt for much of last season and even played when most players would have shut themselves down.

“It was a big old knock,” Elliott said of the hit. “We said, OK, we’ve got to get this looked at and an X-Ray showed something, but not significant. But we said, let’s be careful.”

The CT scan that followed showed there was a slight fracture that was developing, so doctors decided the proper thing to do was to address the injury immediately rather than allow the injury to worsen, which would threaten Robinson’s season.

“We anticipate he’ll be down a couple of weeks,” Elliott said after Monday’s morning practice. “I think he gets the stitches out this week and then he’ll be back into conditioning.”

The coach said Robinson had a plate and some screws inserted, “so it’s fixed. Now, we’ve just got to get him back into football shape.”

Robinson missed both of Virginia’s scrimmages over the past couple of weeks.

“It could be a couple of games [into the season] before he’s ready to roll,” Elliott said.

The coach also updated other injuries on the roster, beginning with seventh-year safety Antonio Clary, who has missed the fall camp.

“We anticipated that it would be the end of August before he was really cleared to go, which means he’s got a couple of weeks to get himself into shape and ready to go,” Elliott said.

Wide receiver Trell Harris (fourth year/hamstring) should be ready to play in the season-opener on Aug. 30 against Coastal Carolina, and the same goes for third-year defensive lineman Hunter Osborne (ankle), a transfer from Alabama.

“Hunter is out of the boot and running on dry land,” Elliott said.

Defensive end Mekhi Buchanan (third year) had a more severe high ankle sprain than Osborne, but the coach said he anticipates that he will return to practice later this week.

“All those guys will be kind of integrating back into practice, and by the time we flip to next week, they should be full-go. Right now, we’re really nursing more of the soft-tissue ankles that are typical of camp, and so Kam would be the only one that’s out an extended amount of time.”