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Injury scares have been a significant part of the of the fabric of this fall's camp for the Texas Longhorns. Fortunately, the scares regarding sophomore quarterback David Ash and his hamstring and Josh Cochran and his legs turned out to be nothing. Not so much for new kicker Anthony Fera, the Penn State transfer who made his decision in large part due to a desire to be closer to a sick family member.
What was initially called groin strain was termed a "sore hip flexor" by head coach Mack Brown on the radio early Saturday morning. Whatever the case, it seems that the injury has the potential to keep him out for some time:
Sounds like Fera is out for a while. Nick Jordan and Nick Rose will be the guys there for a bit
— Carter Strickland (@ESPNStrickland) August 21, 2012#Longhorns#Hookem
The program has still not given a timetable for his return. Right now, there probably is not a timetable and Fera is simply out indefinitely.
With the first game now 11 days away, it's becoming more and more probable that Fera misses one or more contests.
So how are the numbers shaking out at the placekicker position? It seems that Ben Pruitt and William Russ have fallen behind Jordan, the true freshman from Coppell who earned his offer after kicking a 60-yarder in a summer camp.
Brown had good things to say about Jordan in that Saturday morning interview:
Nick Jordan has done an excellent job for us even though he hasn't done it in front of 101 thousand like he'll have to in a few weeks.
Predictably, Brown has also praised Jordan this fall for having a strong leg -- which was on full display at that summer camp -- but there has not been any real mention of how well Jordan and the other kickers have performed in scrimmages and in practice, a bit concerning simply for the dearth of information. Second spring practice PTSD, imo.
If there is good news here it's that Fera won't really be needed, hopefully, until the conference season begins against Oklahoma State on September 29th, giving the Penn State transfer roughly five weeks to get healthy. Unless he suffered a setback, that should be a reasonable timetable, even without having an actual timetable at the moment.
Otherwise, things could start getting dicey again, with a significant amount of pressure likely to be placed on the true freshman Jordan. And, my PTSD just got triggered again.