Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule updated the Huskers' latest injuries on Monday as his team heads into a Week 6 matchup at Illinois on Friday night.
Safety DeShon Singleton (knee) and linebacker Luke Reimer will both be out for the Illinois game.
Rhule says the team believes Cam Lenhardt has "a chance of coming back this week, obviously that'd be a big thing for us," receiver Malachi Coleman – who had been undergoing concussion protocol – and offensive lineman Turner Corcoran will all be full go this week.
Singleton suffered a knee injury on just the second play of the game against Michigan after he blocked from the side and may have gotten his foot stuck in the turf. Rhule said on Monday that Singleton will be out "for an extended period of time" but did not mark it as a season-ending injury: "We'll expect to have him back at some point. I don't know when that'll be, but DeShon will be out this Friday."
Reimer, on the other hand, went out in the first half against Louisiana Tech and has not played since. Rhule said prior to the Michigan game that the Huskers expected him back against the Wolverines, but a last-minute trip to the hospital on the morning of game day forced Reimer to miss Michigan and will force him out of Illinois.
"Luke is out of the hospital, was kind of back and forth a little bit. Luke won't play this Friday, but hopefully we'll have him healthy and back with us soon," Rhule said Monday. "I just don't wanna start talking about his personal health without him (allowing me to). It's nothing football related (with Reimer).
" ... It's a big deal (to be without Singleton and Reimer). Some guys have to step up. Even in that game, once DeShon went down, Tommi who's been playing both ways had to go play the whole game at corner. (Quinton) Newsome had to go in and play at safety. Phalen (Sanford) played well, he really came through for us. Koby Bretz is a guy that can play football, we need Koby to play football, we need Phalen to step up and play well. Tommi needs to help us at corner. Some young guys that have kind of been in that redshirt mode need to step up. D'Andre Barnes is an excellent young player. He's been practicing with the twos, he's ready to go now if we need him. ... Mikai (Gbayor) has been playing Jack for us, he went back last week and played middle linebacker. Just some different things like that, hopefully we can settle down this week and really lock some guys into roles."
On quarterbacks, Rhule says that Jeff Sims and Heinrich Haarberg are both full go as the Huskers held a full-contact, fully padded practice on Sunday evening.
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It's good news from Rhule about Singleton, who looked like he may have suffered a season-ending injury on Saturday.
"He was in a lot of pain and was out," Rhule said on Saturday shortly after the game. "I don’t know that it’s anything beyond – I don’t think it’s an ACL as of yet, but we’ll see. They’ll obviously do all the tests and all those things."
It was surprising to Rhule, he said, that Reimer was not available against Michigan.
“I didn’t see Luke. I was told he was at the hospital," Rhule said on Saturday. "Obviously, Luke was injured this week, and just so you guys know, I never lied to you. You guys asked me if he was going to be fine. I said he was going to be fine. He just started to have some pain yesterday, and they said it was nothing, gave him antibiotics and the antibiotic didn’t heal it. They just wanted to rule out infections and MRSAs and all those things. I don’t have any knowledge now, but that was a complete and total surprise to me this morning. He was actually at breakfast and then the doctors came to me and I said ‘let’s get him to the hospital.’ The last thing I would want would be for something worse to happen to him.”
"... Our thoughts and prayers are with Luke. He was unfortunately taken to the hospital this morning from the hotel, so we’re hoping that he’ll be OK. But, we just err with an abundance of caution for him.”
