Apparently Ben Jones suffered some type of ankle or foot injury during practice today.  Richt hasn’t commented yet due to injury privacy issues.  So what does this mean?

Worst case scenario is probably a dislocated and/or fractured ankle.  He’d likely be lost for the year with that I’d imagine.  I still remember that Jason Kendall injury back when he played for the Pirates.  Ugh.  Best case scenario would probably be some type of painful bunion.  I’m thinking we probably end up with some type of high ankle sprain.  With a high ankle sprain you’re looking at a potentially nagging injury and potentially missing the opener, maybe more depending on severity.

As for contingency plans, the most likely option would be to slide Chris Davis over from guard to center and shift either Vance or Anderson into his vacant spot at guard.  One thing about all the OL injuries we sustained last year, it made our OL quite possibly the most flexible OL we’ve fielded that I remember.  A case could be made (quite easily) that Jones was the toughest OL to replace, but unlike the past two years, we’re still another injury or two away from starting guys for the first time.  Vance and Anderson both started games for stretches last year before injury.  Once we get back Josh Davis at OT, we’ll be picking up another former starter (albeit forced by injury last year).

It’s hard to consider a true sophomore OC as a leader but Jones has that heart and grit you want in an ideal center and OL.  Hopefully we’ll find out he’s out for a couple of weeks at most, ideally day-to-day but if you’ve ever had a sprained ankle you know how tender those things tend to be.  Oh well, we’ll find out in the next day or so (hopefully).

Edit:  That was fast.  Just an ankle sprain and he’s day-to-day.  Honestly the best case scenario when you hear your starting OC goes down screaming 2 1/2 weeks ahead of the opener.