Ad Disclosure
Nick Saban announces ‘pretty significant’ injury to defensive star
By Keith Farner
Published:
Alabama coach Nick Saban announced on Sunday that star defensive lineman LaBryan Ray has a “pretty significant” groin injury that he suffered near the end of summer.
Saban estimated that the injury may keep Ray out for a couple weeks.
“But hopefully we’ll get him back and he’ll be confident in his ability to play, we’ll just have to wait and see, day to day, how that goes,” Saban said.
Injuries have been an issue for much of Ray’s career, as he returned last season following a 2019 foot injury to play in seven games with three starts. He was selected to the Outland Trophy and Bronko Nagurski Trophy watch lists. He had a half sack and 12 tackles last season.
The second injury came after another foot injury as a freshman in 2017, then there was the lower leg injury as a junior in 2019 that cut both campaigns short. He also missed a significant amount of time last season because of an elbow injury.
Ray ultimately redshirted in 2019 after he accumulated nine tackles, including 1.5 tackles for loss and a sack, and also forced one fumble.
He arrived at Alabama as arguably the top player in the state of Alabama in 2017, and was the No. 26 nationally in the 247Composite and the No. 1 strongside defensive end prospect.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
