Auburn DE Carl Lawson suffered torn ACL, likely out for season
Gus Malzahn addressed the status of starting quarterback Nick Marshall when he stood behind the podium to begin SEC Media Days and while he did not elaborate the forthcoming discipline that is coming his way, Auburn’s head coach did drop a bombshell on the 1,200 media members in attendance.
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Sophomore defensive end Carl Lawson had knee surgery this spring, but the details were quite mysterious for the crown jewel of Malzahn’s first recruiting class on The Plains. The details were revealed on Monday and they weren’t good as it was confirmed Lawson had surgery to repair a torn ACL.
Malzahn said Lawson had successful ACL surgery the first part of May after he injured his knee the last week of spring practice. After waiting for the swelling to go down after a couple weeks, Dr. James Andrews confirmed he required surgery.
"“Carl is working extremely hard and he is determined to come back toward the end of this year,” Malzahn said."
The 6-2, 260-pound defensive end was a five-star recruit in the 247Sports Composite Rankings and was ranked as the nation’s No. 21 overall recruit and the No. 2 weakside defensive end in the nation.
As a freshman, Lawson recorded 20 tackles with 7.5 of them going for a loss and added four sacks. He was especially dominant in the Tiger’s win against Ole Miss when he was named the SEC Freshman of the Week after posting six tackles, 3.5 for loss, two sacks and a quarterback hurry in the team’s 30-22 win over the Rebels.
Lawson is likely to miss the entire season which will challenge an Auburn defense that was expecting Lawson to be one of the unit’s top players.