Alabama’s Hurts out at least a week after ‘minor’ ankle procedure

BIRMINGHAM – Once the envy of all college football, Alabama’s super-loaded quarterback situation just got a little less envious.

Two weeks after sophomore starter Tua Tagovailoa suffered a knee injury that will affect him the rest of the season, junior backup quarterback Jalen Hurts recently underwent a “minor procedure” to help heal a high ankle sprain suffered Saturday against Tennessee, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban announced Monday.

“Jalen actually twisted his ankle when he scored the touchdown. He stayed in the game, nobody really knew anything about it (until afterwards),” Saban said Monday morning prior to speaking at the Monday Morning Quarterback Club of Birmingham monthly luncheon. “It was a bit of a high ankle sprain and they did a minor procedure to try and help the healing. I think he’ll be out for one week, probably just this bye week, and will probably be ready to start working again next week.”

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The injury occurred on Hurts’ 21-yard touchdown run with 1:03 left in the third quarter, but Hurts managed to participate in six more plays in the fourth quarter before third-string quarterback Mac Jones took over in the middle of Alabama’s second-to-last drive of Saturday’s 58-21 win in Knoxville.

Former Alabama offensive tackle Cam Robinson suffered a similar high ankle sprain during his freshman season in 2014, but the Louisiana native managed to return to action in time to play against LSU two weeks later.

“It’ll be a medical decision as far as how fast he can come back,” Saban continued, “(But) we’ve had other players with a similar situation and been able to recover fairly quickly.”

As the top-ranked Crimson Tide enters its bye week ahead of its annual showdown against No. 4 LSU on Nov. 3, Hurts isn’t the only member of Alabama’s walking wounded that will be taking it easy during practice this week.

Injured sophomore receiver DeVonta Smith (hamstring) is also expected to get another week of rest after suffering a right hamstring injury in the first half of the Missouri game two weeks ago. Smith didn’t travel with the team to Knoxville this weekend.

“All the guys that have been injured, we’re not pushing this week,” Saban said. “So we won’t really be able to make any kind of judgement or assessment on that until next week, just to see where he is and how he can practice and what he can do at that time.”

Sophomore tight end Kedrick James (ankle) is also expected to remain unavailable during the bye week after suffering a high ankle sprain against Arkansas. Alabama is still without the services of junior cornerback Trevon Diggs (foot) and linebackers Chris Allen (knee) and Terrell Lewis (knee), who are all out for the season with their respective injuries.

“Obviously you want your players to get healthy, get some rest, you want them to get their strength back, hydrate, do all those things,” Saban said, “but you also want them to focus on improving. And that means when we are practicing, everybody’s got to challenge themselves to sort of improve and do the things they need to do to get better.

“You kind of get remembered for what you do in November, in this league especially, and especially the way our scheduled (shapes) out. So I think it’s really important and imperative the players have that right mindset.”