EUGENE — Oregon’s Kayvon Thibodeaux returned after missing the past two-plus games with a left ankle sprain and then left Saturday’s game before halftime after appearing to land awkwardly at the end of a play. But the star edge rusher didn’t re-aggravate the injury, according to Mario Cristobal.
Thibodeaux didn’t record a statistic in the 41-19 win for No. 3 Oregon over Arizona on Saturday night at Autzen Stadium, but his presence was felt in his limited action nonetheless.
“Kayvon really improved a lot this week and we figured he really felt good and wanted to try it with a load management limit on there,” Cristobal said. “We were thinking 6-10 plays — I think we got somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe nine. We really feel good about how he’s going to be for this upcoming week.”
Thibodeaux, who hadn’t played since late in the first half of the Sept. 4 game against Fresno State, entered Saturday’s game at the end of Arizona’s second drive. The third-year sophomore played multiple snaps during the second quarter and got a lot of push at the line of scrimmage. Following a 10-yard scramble by Arizona quarterback Jordan McCloud to the UO 47-yard line, Thibodeaux appeared to land awkwardly and limped off the field.
His left ankle was heavily taped before halftime and Thibodeaux returned to the sideline in the second half but was wearing sneakers and didn’t return to the field.
“I don’t think it’ll completely feel normal all the time but there was no re-aggravation of an injury,” Cristobal said. “With him it’s been load management and we reached that. So that’s why we pulled him out. Whenever we pull a guy out who has some type of nick or an injury or whatnot, we try to always advance them with either some form of — in his case it was wearing a different set of shoes; some guys might actually do some rehab work on the sideline. Everything right now with him is from a load management standpoint and not a re-aggravation of his ankle.”
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