Severity of Mo Ibrahim injury revealed

Minnesota Golden Gophers star running back Mohamed Ibrahim suffered an injury to his left leg in Thursday’s 45-31 loss to Ohio State, and on Monday head coach PJ Fleck addressed the severity of the injury: Ibrahim will miss the remainder of the 2021 season and will undergo season-ending surgery, Fleck said.

Fleck added in his press conference that the leg injury is pretty “clean” and that Ibrahim should make a full recovery in 4-6 months. However, there remains no guarantee that Ibrahim will return to Minnesota, as the redshirt senior could instead declare for the 2022 NFL Draft.

In Thursday’s game against Ohio State, Ibrahim — the center of Minnesota’s offense — was their go-to player through nearly three quarters. Before limping off the field in the third, Ibrahim received 30 carries for 163 rushing yards and two touchdowns.

“He’s with our medical team right now, so whatever it is, we’re going to Row as a football team,” Fleck said on Saturday after the loss to Ohio State. “I was just with him and he had a big smile on his face, but that’s Mo. I think he’s the best back in the country. Whatever his injury is, we’ll figure it out and we’ll Row. We’ll make sure he’s healthy when we bring him back.”

What is Minnesota losing?

The loss of Ibrahim could be detrimental for the Golden Gophers, who, in turn, will lose the bulk of their offensive potential. Ibrahim received 30 carries through roughly three quarters in Week 1, and could have easily broken 40 carries had he played the entire game.

Moreover, Ibrahim’s resume at Minnesota is about as impressive as can be. In 2020, Ibrahim played in all seven of the Golden Gophers’ games, logging 201 carries for 1,076 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns. While he adds less in the receiving game than some Big Ten tailbacks — last year, he had just eight receptions for 56 yards — Ibrahim receives extremely high usage in the ground game, notching over 30 carries three times, including a 41-carry, 207-yard, four-touchdown performance against Maryland.

Ibrahim has tallied three career 200-plus-yard rushing games, including two in a row last October against Maryland and Illinois. His 163-yard performance against Ohio State was his ninth consecutive game logging at least 100 rushing yards.

He finished the 2020 season as the Big Ten’s Running Back of the Year and was named first team All-Big Ten, as well as a third team All-American. Ibrahim has been a starter in Minnesota’s offense since his redshirt freshman season in 2018, tallying 3,003 rushing yards in his career — eighth in Minnesota program history — as well as 33 rushing touchdowns, which comes in as fourth-most in school history.

Ibrahim, a native of Olney, Maryland, was tabbed a three-star recruit coming out of high school, and he committed to Minnesota in January of 2017. In his senior season at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, he rushed 206 times for 1,314 yards and 15 touchdowns in ten games, including 100-plus-yard performances in seven games.