Hutton: Danger doesn’t stop us from loving football

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Notre Dame running back Jonas Gray, right, is hooked by Boston College linebacker Steele Divitto as he rushes during the first half of an NCAA college football game in South Bend, Ind., Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Updated: December 24, 2011 8:19AM

This is a list of serious injuries that football players at Notre Dame have suffered since spring practice: running back Cameron Roberson (“severe” knee injury according to Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly), defensive end Kapron Lewis Moore (ACL), tight end Mike Ragone (ACL), running back Jonas Gray (ACL), offensive lineman Tate Nichols (shoulder injury), center Braxston Cave (foot with surgery required), and linebacker Steve Filer (ACL). Ragone has suffered three major knee injuries.

There were perhaps dozens of other less serious but significant injuries: a high ankle sprain for defensive end Ethan Johnson that kept him out of games for more than a month; a nagging ankle sprain for Manti Te’o that he has dealt with all season; and a hamstring injury suffered by Theo Riddick that has sidelined him for the last two games.

There are still two more games and several weeks of practice left and certainly more injuries to come.

There are 126 players listed in the media guide on the team and, as far as I know, this is neither more nor fewer injuries than a typical Division I football team suffers in a season. For the sake of this column, let’s assume it’s a normal number.

For a targeted group of players, say the top 60 or so (Notre Dame listed 55 players in its participation report against Boston College), the odds of suffering a consequential injury are around 10 percent.

Is the price of doing business too high for 18-, 19-, 20- and 21-year-old kids, most of whom won’t go on to play pro football but many of whom will end up with chronic, residual lifetime pain from injuries suffered playing college football and even a lifetime of football?

Finally, a thousand years from now, will society look back at football as cruel and barbaric, just like Roman gladiators, who fought until death for entertainment for the masses? It took centuries for civilization to bag the death sport.

The cultural indifference to the injuries suffered inside football and the race to get bigger and stronger is astounding, and yet I’ll admit to being as hooked as anyone on the sport.

Injury derails Gray’s comeback story: The Jonas Gray saga had more twists and turns than a soap opera.

I’ll say unequivocally that I never believed Gray could turn out to be the runner that he was before he tore his ACL on the first play of the third quarter against Boston College.

There was hopeful optimism for Cierre Wood when the season started, based on his end of the year performance and general ambivalence about the potential effectiveness of Gray as a backup from the people who covered the team.

The skepticism was warranted: Gray had rushed for 367 yards in three uneventful seasons where he had garnered a reputation as a guy who fumbled it too much and who wasn’t quite serious enough about his job as a running back.

The black hole got even darker for Gray when he coughed it up on the goal line against South Florida and it was returned 97 yards for a touchdown. In the normal course of a year, a coach might’ve given up on Gray after that play.

However, the Irish were hampered with depth issues at that spot and Kelly and Gray both had to make it work.

Gray actually took the legacy building speech that Kelly gave him to lift his spirits and ran like a madman and the runner everyone thought he might be coming out of high school, averaging 6.9 yards per carry before he was injured. At one point, his average was better than 10 yards per carry. Gray had outperformed Wood so much that it was tiring to watch Kelly alternate series with each back. Gray had turned into a stubborn, unshakeable mule with the ball in his hands. Wood still dances too much.

The injury waylaid the unthinkable for Gray: He had possibly turned himself into a late-round NFL draft pick with his performance.

Now, he’ll likely have to get the knee better and try to sign on as a free agent.