Hampton to Skip Surgery, Will Play this Season
The Des Moines Register is reporting that Jewel Hampton will skip surgery on his ACL and will play in Iowa’s September 5th opener against the Northern Iowa Panthers.
The past few weeks have been a roller coaster for Hawkeye fan regarding Iowa’s projected starting running back for the upcoming season.At first, reports out of Iowa’s summer workouts were that Jewel Hampton had torn his ACL, an injury that typically takes just under a year to fully recover from.
Then Hampton commented on his Facebook status that he didn’t know the extent of his injury, prompting reporters from the Register to visit Hampton at his apartment where they observed him running up a set of stairs without the aid of a knee brace.”I’m fine,” commented Hampton before declining to be interviewed further.
Finally on Thursday, Kirk Ferentz commented that there was indeed “partial” damage, but “all parties involved” feel that there will be a full recovery before the season begins, a little over seven weeks from now.
This comes as great news for fans of the black and gold as Iowa’s only other running back with playing experience is walk on Paki O’Meara. Whether Hampton will show lingering effects of this injury during the season remains to be seen. I don’t anticipate any further news until Fall camp begins August 7th.
Jewel Hampton will forego surgery and play in 2009
