After ‘terrifying’ injury, Boise State’s Jaden Mickey doing ‘much better’
Boise State football coach Spencer Danielson said Monday afternoon that redshirt junior defensive back Jaden Mickey is doing “much better” after he suffered a scary injury over the weekend.
Mickey was hurt on a kickoff return Saturday night in Boise State’s 47-14 victory over App State. Mickey’s neck bent backward while making a tackle in the second half, resulting in a lengthy stoppage that ended in Mickey being carted off the field on a stretcher while wearing a neck board.
He raised his hand toward the crowd as he was being taken away, eliciting loud cheers, but was transported directly to a nearby hospital for testing. Danielson and defensive coordinator Erik Chinander were on the field with Mickey while he received treatment for about five minutes.
“The only thing I could relay to people was, ‘Hey, guys, his eyes are open, I just saw him squeeze his hands. I just saw him move his feet,’ ” Chinander said Monday. “But anytime they get the neck board out and those kinds of things, it’s really terrifying for that young man and for his family.”
Danielson said Mickey had multiple skeletal, muscular and brain scans and testing done on him once arriving at the hospital before being discharged the same night.
As of Monday afternoon, Mickey was in concussion protocol but already studying Notre Dame video at the team’s facility, the coaches said, with the Broncos set to travel to South Bend, Indiana, to take on the Fighting Irish this weekend.
Danielson said it’s unclear if Mickey will be available for the Notre Dame game. That’ll come as a bitter blow for Mickey, who played in 28 games for the Fighting Irish across two and a half years before transferring to Boise State this past offseason.
“We’re going to put the young man in front of him playing football,” Danielson said. “Obviously, as an alum of Notre Dame, he loves Notre Dame, a lot of those (former) teammates are still there, but he had an injury, and we’ve got to walk this path the right way.”
However, regardless of Mickey’s status, Danielson said he will travel with the team.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman also commented on Mickey’s injury on Monday, saying that he had reached out to the Boise State corner on Sunday and got confirmation that he was OK.
“These guys, they’re not cars,” Freeman said. “You don’t rent them for a couple of years and then when they leave, that’s it. You sold them. It’s done. These are relationships that last forever.”
