PISCATAWAY, N.J. — It has been a different season than Samuel Brown V might have imagined. The Rutgers football running back, who had such high hopes for a breakout season, has had to be patient in his winding and turning road back from a long-term injury.
He was injured last year in a game against Indiana where he had a career-high 101 rushing yards with a touchdown on 28 carries. He left the game early with an injury and in speaking to the media following that game, Brown sounded like he wasn’t concerned about missing any time.
Then just days later, it was determined that Brown would be out for the season.
Unable to play during the spring season and training camp, Brown finally returned to Rutgers football for their second game of the season.
He has yet to break double-digit carries in a game this season, something he did four times last year as a true freshman.
“It was definitely frustrating, but I would say I handled it,” Brown told Rutgers Wire last week.
“It’s definitely tough as a competitor, as a hard worker, you know, you want to be out there with your guys every week. I knew that I had to get better and healthy and I thank the trainers, the doctors and (the) coaching staff.”
This past fall, Brown had 178 rushing yards and two touchdowns for Rutgers as he was eased into the offense.
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There is a silver lining in all of this. On the season, Brown has just 53 rushing attempts in 11 games played. Compare that to 86 rushes last year in seven games and it is clear that Brown’s workload is down on the year.
But with the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl this week, it means that Brown could be set to peak for the season’s most important game.
“I would definitely say so – not taking a beating throughout training camp and, the beginning part of the season but as the as the season progressed,” Brown said,
“I felt like I was getting better. But now that we’re past the regular season and in the bowl game preparation, you know, I’m feeling the best I felt.”
Initially when he suffered the injury, Brown didn’t think anything of it. He expected to play the next week He acknowledges that the rocky course of the past 13 months, including a slow ramping up this year following his return to the field, is not as planned.
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But that is fine with Brown, who is ready to make an impact and help out Rutgers with one final game – a bowl game at that – left in the season.
“It was definitely frustrating. I did testing after the game -I was fine. You know, I felt felt pretty good. And later that night that’s when things started kicking in and pain started kicking in and I knew that I had to get something checked out. So you know, it was definitely frustrating. Especially when you’re having success things are going well and then you have a small setback,” Brown said.
“Just a lot of pain. I couldn’t really do what I wanted to do and that’s very hard. Now I feel great, the best I’ve felt. I’m just happy with what is ahead with the bowl.”