The Minnesota Gophers lost their season opener to Ohio State, but the biggest loss may have come late in the third quarter when they lost star running back Mo Ibrahim to a suspected Achilles tendon tear.
The team announced that Ibrahim was set to undergo surgery on Tuesday for what they are calling a “lower body injury.” Head coach P.J. Fleck didn’t elaborate on the specifics of the injury any further, other than to say the injury is a tear, it’s “clean” and he expects Ibrahim to make a full recovery in 4-6 months.
So while Minnesota stopped short of announcing that it was an Achilles tendon tear, but everything else we’ve seen and read from other orthopedic specialists is that this is a classic Achilles tendon rupture. (Although it is not 100 percent confirmed from the team, for the rest of this blog, we will be referring to Ibrahim’s lower body injury as an Achilles tear.) You can see a slow motion video of the rupture below.
#Minnesota running back Mohamed Ibrahim out with a leg injury. Something definitely popped. Scary stuff. Hope he’s okay. Absolutely phenomenal talent. #CFB pic.twitter.com/yxBskbLWNN
— SportSource Analytics (@SportSourceA) September 3, 2021
Dr. Silverman Comments
This is in Achilles tendon rupture. You can see it pop and the reverberation in his calf muscle.
This is a classic mechanism of eccentric lengthening. Basically, he’s pushing down on the ball of the foot but the ankle is going the opposite way and that generates a massive amount of force. If there is silent degeneration within the Achilles and it reaches a certain point, pop.
He will need Achilles tendon repair in order to get back to sport and return with the best function. It will not be a short healing time period, it will probably take more than 6 to 9 months before he is allowed to start aggressive training again, which is a little longer than the 4-6 month timeline initially mentioned by Fleck.
There are some methods to speed the healing, however, tendons still need time to fully organize, and this particular tendon has to manage the most amount of force in the body, so rushing back can be disastrous. With his eyes on the NFL, he’ll need to be cautious during his recovery to ensure his tendon really strengthens the best it can. But with youth and a great medical staff on his side, I see no reason why Ibrahim can’t come back just as strong if not stronger than before. We wish him the best in his recovery.