Will Honas suffers knee injury, return unknown

On a day that was supposed to a celebration of Nebraska football and the return of fans to Memorial Stadium, the Huskers had some bad news to report following Saturday's Red-White Spring Game.

Head coach Scott Frost announced that sixth-year senior inside linebacker Will Honas had suffered a knee injury during the final week of spring practice.

While Frost didn't want to speculate on the severity, he made it seem like Honas was in jeopardy of missing the start of the 2021 season.

"Will's been a just awesome teammate and I care about him so much, so it really hurt me to see him down on the ground on Wednesday," Frost said. "Doesn't look like he's going to be ready for the start of the season, and we'll see where it is beyond that."

The injury serves as the latest setback in a frustrating career for the Wichita, Kan., native. This marks the third major knee injury Honas has suffered since he was at Bishop Carroll High School.

The last one came in his fourth game as a Husker after arriving at NU as a junior college transfer out of Butler (Kan.) C.C., which ended his season up allowed him to redshirt under the four-game redshirt rule.

Honas was coming off his best season yet in 2020, starting all seven of the games he played and ranking second on the team with 57 tackles and leading the defense with 6.5 tackles for loss and 3.0 sacks.

Defensive lineman Ty Robinson probably summed up the reaction to Honas' injury as well as anyone.

"It sucks," Robinson said. "I know Will was really looking forward to coming back and having a good sixth year in that free year. He put in the work. I know he had surgery for his hip and had to get through that, and looked good through the first part of spring ball. Having this happen to him now, that sucks. I feel bad for him."