AARON ANDERSON INJURES KNEE & HAS SMALL OPERATION, BRIAN KELLY REVEALS
- Lonn Phillips Sullivan
- Aug 3
- 3 min read
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On Sunday, LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly confirmed fears that Aaron Anderson, 2024's leading receiver, was fighting his way back from injury, missing 3 straight practices, including word that he was seen wearing a knee wrap of some kind.
But what's more worrying, despite Kelly telling the media "Anderson would return next week" to practices???
The fact this new problem, intensive inflammation which required an "infusion" (according to Brian Kelly) within the same knee that kept Anderson on the sidelines as a freshman at Alabama throughout 2022, and limited him within a deep receiving corps during 2023, his first as a Tiger; Anderson underwent surgery while suffering MCL and meniscus problems during that time.
"He really has an arthritic knee, generally speaking," Kelly revealed at the Baton Rouge Food Bank on Sunday, "You wouldn't call it arthritis, but it's a cranky knee that we needed to calm down. We cut him back. He has gotten some medicine for it. He feels really good, and there was no need for us to have him be a habitual guy that has a sore knee."
It is suspected Anderson's injury on Day 1 of Fall Camp was largely due to increased offseason workouts, with Brian Kelly adding "the extra volume pissed it off", however, doesn't the timing, the injury to an injury-prone receiver, and the rhetoric around the circumstances remind you of Chris Hilton Jr's weekly injury catharsis from last fall???
We eventually witnessed Hilton's return by the A&M game, missing the first 7 weeks of the season, and each and every week became a battle between Kelly and his staff trying to deflect, the media trying to put the pieces together, and LSU's obsessive die hard fanbase trying to find out if Hilton would play or not, with almost everyone aloof to what was really going on.
Everything was delayed by an odd case of a nagging ankle injury that never seemed to let up, but neither did the strange "get your hopes up" statements from Brian Kelly that everything was fine.
Week to week, Kelly constantly made optimistic to ambiguous statements surrounding Hilton like most coaches would do; Still, Kelly's constant redressing of a dire situation, making it appear like he would be in firm contention to play.....only.....until he wasn't, became infuriating....
....week after week, "will he? Won't he" to the point you wondered if he was LSU's own Keyser Soze...a figment of imagination, a flicker in the night.....a wish on the wind...
Could it happen for a second year running to another receiver, this time key returning Tiger Aaron Anderson???
From a few calls to our people around the situation, Aaron's situation is (potentially) far worse than Hilton faced last season...
Why???
Sure, Kelly indicated Anderson is currently on the path to recovery, it appears he will be ready for the Clemson game, but knowing the condition his knee is in already at the outset of Fall Camp, not to mention what that specific knee endured already in 2022 & 2023, then you combine those factors with rapid inflammation before a top 5 showdown in Week 1, as well as the slashing, cutting, constant foot-planting nature of Anderson's position (not just as a receiver, but making those moves from the slot), you have a recipe for disaster if Anderson's snaps aren't managed....at least through the first few weeks of the season.
Wrap him in cotton wool....and if you don't want to tell us when he'll be available or how bad the injury is, that's fine, just avoid the week to week saga of last year.
By LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
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