Los Angeles – As the Southern California Trojans filed out of their lunch hall Thursday, Loveland High School graduate Jeff Byers wheeled out. The Denver Post Gold Helmet Award winner and Gatorade national player of the year in 2003 is getting around on a portable scooter, out for the year with an injured right hip.
Expected to fight for a starting guard spot for the two-time defending national champions, Byers had surgery July 12, his second on the hip in six months.
He will redshirt and have three years of eligibility remaining.
“I’m not upset,” he said after the Trojans’ first fall practice. “It’s sad not being able to be with the guys. But you’ve got to find a positive in all the negatives. It’s a great time to learn a system. I learned it on the run last year. This time, I can take it all in, get ahead in school.”
Byers, who started four games in place of an injured John Drake, first hurt the hip in the UCLA game Dec. 4.
“It was an all-of-a-sudden kind of thing,” Byers said. “After the first quarter of the UCLA game, it was just hurting. By halftime, I was talking to the trainers: ‘Man, my hip is really, really sore.’ By the third quarter, I was having a hard time getting in my stance, a hard time running.”
It didn’t heal, and he barely played in USC’s 55-19 Orange Bowl win over Oklahoma for the national title. The injury was diagnosed as a labral tear, basically cartilage damage in the hip. But he also had bone damage.
Byers had surgery in early January and tried coming back for spring ball, possibly too fast, and retore the labral.
“It probably wasn’t a smart move by me,” Byers said.
When he couldn’t run early this summer, he decided on season-ending surgery. The good news is he picked a good school at which to be hurt.
“At least I get to watch them win,” he said.
