Our worst nightmare appears to have been confirmed: River Cracraft has suffered a torn ACL in his left knee, bringing his WSU career to an end, Cougfan.com is reporting.
The play itself looked fairly innocuous; Cracraft caught a pass over the middle, as he has done about 150 times in his career, and was tackled in what looked like a fairly typical manner. There was no direct contact to the knee, which means it’s hard to know exactly what happened.
Not that it really matters, at this point. All that really matters is that one of the great receiving careers at WSU has come to an unceremonious end. Cracraft, who missed about a half dozen games over the past two seasons because of injuries, was enjoying a renaissance as a senior: 53 receptions, 701 yards and 5 touchdowns.
Three of those TDs came last night before the injury.
While an ACL injury certainly isn’t the death sentence to one’s football career the way it used to be, the timing is pretty terrible all around. It stinks to lose one of the team’s best receivers with games against Colorado and Washington looming, and it’s absolutely terrible that Cracraft won’t get to finish his career the way he wants in one of WSU’s best seasons.
Additionally, this likely is going to impact Cracraft’s NFL aspirations, as pro day is only about four months away. Here’s to hoping he can intrigue a team, as Travis Long did when he suffered a similar knee injury at a similar point in his senior season, and get signed as an undrafted free agent.
Cracraft finishes his career second on the school’s all-time receptions list (218) and sixth in both yards (2,701) and touchdowns (20).