Former Stanford running back Bryce Love says he suffered torn ACL

Bryce Love stayed for his senior season at Stanford, but a torn ACL in his final game clouds his draft stock.

Out of Christian McCaffrey’s shadow, Stanford running back Bryce Love was second in the country in rushing yards (2,118) and was the 2017 Heisman Trophy runner-up. He stayed for his senior season, but an ankle injury plagued him throughout and he averaged 4.5 yards per carry (739 rushing yards) over 10 games.

Now, according to Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports, Love suffered a torn right ACL in Stanford’s regular season finale against Cal on Dec. 1. He had surgery on Dec. 18 with the famed Dr. James Andrews, and is expected to make a full recovery. Love sat out of Stanford’s Sun Bowl victory over Pittsburgh, as he declared his focus on preparation for April’s draft.

Interestingly, with a nod to getting completely healthy but no specific mention of a torn ACL, Love’s announcement he would not play in the Sun Bowl came just one day before he apparently had surgery on his knee. Thamel added an effort from Love to be transparent as the pre-draft process gets going, hence the decision to make the previously unreported injury public.

If he had entered the draft off his breakout junior season, Love may have been a first-round pick last year. His draft stock had already taken a big hit as went through a disappointing 2018 campaign, and now he’s recovering from a major injury to further cloud things. At minimum, he’ll almost surely miss his entire rookie season.

Love will attend the NFL Combine in February, but he will obviously be a limited participant. But he can (and should) get medically tested in Indianapolis, if only to offer whatever progress he has made early in his recovery, and interview with teams.

Love has an eye beyond football, with a plan to become a pediatrician when his pro career is over. So beyond wanting to play one more season with his teammates as a driving force to come back to one of the top academic institutions around, Love wanted to complete his undergraduate degree in human biology.

But purely from a football perspective, with the short shelf life for running backs in mind, the 2018 season will pretty much go down as a waste for Love.