Mike MacIntyre didn’t give reporters the option of getting the good news or bad news first at his weekly Tuesday press conference, he went ahead and started with the bad.
“Addison Gillam is going to get operated on again Friday, he’s out for the year,” told the head coach. “Which is very, very sad. He’ll get a redshirt year.”
Gillam has been out since the second game of the season against UMass. Gillam had his knee scoped after that game, and there was hope he could return, but it didn’t heal properly.
“He’s going to have another surgery on his knee in his cartilage area again, it didn’t come back exactly how they’d like it so there’s some other things they need to do to make sure it heals back correctly,” explained MacIntyre. “He was trying to come back and it just kept swelling up every time he would run so there was something else. They’re going to go back in and clean it up some more and try to fix it. It’s going to be a longer rehab so he won’t be able to get back this year.”
It was no secret that Gillam had a tough year last year, and even considered stepping away from football at one point during the offseason, Gillam seemed to be taking a positive outlook in a tweet he sent after the news came out.
“Gotta get this knee right. Coming back for some more though. Going to stay positive and focus. #2moreyears.”
“We had a good conversation this morning about it, he’s doing as well as could be expected,” added MacIntyre of Gillam’s spirits. “The silver lining on it is he will get a redshirt year. the negative side is he can’t come back and help us. He was playing well early and he’s a really good football player, a guy that can make a lot of plays. I think he’s a top Pac-12 type of player when he’s healthy, so not having him out there definitely hurts your defense… He’s also on our leadership council, a captain, he’s not around as much and he’s not really on the road, he’s in and out of the training room, so you don’t have his leadership qualities and you don’t have his playmaking abilities.”
Tough to see a player with so much promise go through the struggles that Gillam has had in his career here.
Despite the tough news on Addison, there was some good news to be had for the Buffs linebacking corps on Tuesday, when MacIntyre announced that Kenneth Olugbode would return this week.
“Kenneth will be back, he’ll play Saturday,” he told. “He practiced today and did well. He recovered quicker than we thought, so we have one that didn’t go as well and one that did.”
MacIntyre said that Olugbode would “no doubt’ go back into his starting role, but will be part of a rotation as to ease him back in.
“We’ll rotate [Rick] Gamboa, Grant [Watanabe] and Kenneth,” explained the coach. “Kenneth is in good shape, he hasn’t gotten out of shape, but [he’ll have to get back in] playing shape… So we’ll rotate those guys back there.”
With how scary the compartment syndrome injury can be, it’s great to see “KO” make such a quick recovery, and the Buffs definitely need him.
