Neal Brown shares update on Aubrey Burks after neck injury

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said tests done on Mountaineers safety Aubrey Burks, who suffered a neck injury in Saturday’s win over TCU, all came back negative. The program expects him to make a full recovery.

“I want to talk about our injuries,” Brown said during a Monday press conference. “Aubrey, all tests were negative. For what that was, he’s in good spirits and he’s gonna be okay. That was scary. But best possible results. Always tests were negative and so we expect him. He’ll go through protocol and then be on his way.”

Burks suffered the injury while trying to make a tackle on a punt return during Saturday’s game.

He has 17 tackles on the season with three tackles for loss, two pass breakups and one interception.

Brown also provided an update linebacker Trey Lathan, who had surgery on his leg following an injury suffered against the Horned Frogs.

After the game, Brown had said they expected that Lathan was going to have to have surgery. The team later confirmed the news.

“Trey had successful surgery yesterday,” Brown said. “He’s gonna miss the year obviously but he’s expected to make a full recovery. I want to praise our medical team, our trainers our docs, thought they did a tremendous job. Then I want to huge thank you to TCU, their medical staff, their training staff, they’re extremely helpful. They’retrauma team and their docs, they handled the surgery yesterday. Aubrey and Trey, we’re gonna fly them back tomorrow so looking forward to getting them back.”

Lathan and Burks had both stayed at a local hospital in Texas following the injuries.

A redshirt freshman, Lathan is first on the team with seven quarterback hits and third with 27 tackles. He has also forced a fumble on the season.

The players are major losses for a West Virginia team that has started the year 4-1 despite low expectations, including entering the year as many people’s favorite to finish at the bottom of the Big 12.

The team’s lone loss this year came in its season opener against a Penn State on the road currently ranked in the top 10 of the national rankings. They have defeated three Power Five foes in Pitt, Texas Tech and TCU.

The victory over the Horned Frogs was a hard-fought 24-21 victory in Fort Worth as the Mountaineers ran the ball 43 times for 201 yards.