Fresno State safety Ryan Wilson, who was carted off the field with a lower leg injury in the second quarter of the Bulldogs\u2019 season-opening loss at USC, has been ruled out for the season.<\/p>\n
It is a tough end to a self-made college football career for the seventh-year senior, who had taken classes at Long Beach City College before enrolling at Fresno State in 2022 as a non-scholarship walk on. Wilson worked his way onto to the field playing on special teams and then the Bulldogs\u2019 defense, earning a scholarship and eventually a starting spot in the secondary.<\/p>\n
His senior year lasted 20 plays, before he was injured in a non-contact situation, attempting to cut back to make a tackle on USC running back King Miller as he darted upfield.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball is a different sport,\u201d coach Matt Entz said. \u201cYou get a small window to play and all of a sudden, in one second, those other 11 games can be gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe trained, worked out for 280 days to prepare for 12 opportunities. I know injuries happen in other sports, but for football it\u2019s unforgiving. Just 1% make it to the professional level. There is no men\u2019s league in football, right? Me and 21 other 50-year-olds aren\u2019t getting together in full pads and going down to the park and playing a game. When it\u2019s over, it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson was not available for comment on Monday.<\/p>\n
Entz had rushed out to Wilson as he was attended to on the field by team medical personnel. Entz took Wilson\u2019s hand, when he was down on the turf. The Bulldogs\u2019 coach said he just tried to calm him down, get him to breathe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can you say,\u201d Entz said. \u201cYou\u2019re just trying to provide some support in an emotional moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou talk about a guy who bought into the process that we have here, the way of doing things. He never hesitated once on the changes here, internally, the things that people don\u2019t see. He was at the forefront if it, did a great job. It\u2019s frustrating. His leadership qualities, because of the veteran presence he had, will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Wilson out, junior back up Ethan Tierney played 38 snaps at USC. He is the likely starter on Saturday when the Bulldogs take on Sacramento State in their home opener at Valley Children\u2019s Stadium, though Entz said that junior Jaden Carrillo and sophomore Taylor Powell could see increased playing time.<\/p>\n
No determination had been made on Monday on guard Jonah Leaupepetele, who also was injured at the loss at USC.<\/p>\n
Gino Quinones, an eighth-year senior, moved into the lineup when Leaupepetele went down, but Fresno State lacks experienced depth at the interior offensive line positions.<\/p>\n
At USC, Marquise Thorpe-Taylor started at left guard with Oscar Weigel at center and Leaupepetele at right guard. Quinones had played 280 career snaps starting the season and backup guard Pat Barnett had played 35 snaps last season at Central Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno State safety Ryan Wilson, who was carted off the field with a lower leg injury in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-456619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}