Mario Cristobal announced on Thursday afternoon that promising freshman running back Sean Dollars will be unavailable for a long period of time.
Cristobal said Dollars suffered a ‘pretty significant’ injury during training this offseason and will be out for all of spring football and summer offseason training.
“We expect him back during the season at some point,” said Cristobal during a 15-minute press conference following the team’s first of 15 spring practices.
Dollars was expected to see a jump in the number of carries he would get during the 2021 season. He had a promising end of the 2020 football season where he ran for 47 yards on eight carries. He played in mostly the USC game in the Pac-12 Championship, a game in which he helped fill in for injured starting running CJ Verdell.
Dollars played in four games during the 2019 season and was able to keep his redshirt available. He ran for 81 yards on seven carries during the 2019 season. Dollars has 128 career yards on just 15 carries.
Dollars will be third-year redshirt freshman during the 2021 football season due to the NCAA allowing athletes a free year of eligibility from COVID-19 during the 2020 season.
In other Spring Football news:
The Oregon football program saw three players this offseason be forced to medically retire, including one of Oregon’s most highly decorated offensive line recruits in program history.
Thursday afternoon after Oregon held their first of 15 spring football practices, Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal announced that senior linebacker Samson Niu, redshirt freshman offensive tackle Jonah Tauanu’u and redshirt freshman offensive tackle Chris Randazzo.
Tuananu’u was recruited as part of the 2019 recruiting class and was viewed as potentially the replacement for Penei Sewell whenever Sewell had elected to leave the program for the NFL. Tauanu’u is Oregon’s third-highest offensive line commit in program history at tackle, behind Sewell, and No. 1 and current true freshman tackle Kingsley Suamataia. He played three games in his career at Oregon, all during the 2019 season.
Randazzo was also a member of the 2019 recruiting class and he sat out this past season via an opt-out. Randazzo played in one game
Samson Niu sat out last season by his choice as he was dealing with a personal matter off the field and away from the program. Niu started four games in his career and played in 33 career games for the Ducks. He played in all 14 games for the Ducks in 2019, and he finished the year with 34 tackles. Niu was thought to be a potential starter at the inside linebacker position going into the 2020 season.
There has been a rash of player recidivism over the past few “strange years” but in a lot of ways, these are looked on as blessings. Finding out early and under a Doctors care is far better than on a violent football field.
