Missouri Football: Tigers Takes a Hit With Loss of Wide Receiver

Behind Heisman candidate Chase Daniel, Missouri is a chic pick to play in next season’s BCS National Championship Game, but the Tigers will have to navigate through the early part of their season, at least, without junior wide receiver Danario Alexander, who had surgery Monday to repair a re-torn ACL in his left knee.

The injury is to the same knee that Alexander injured in the 2007 Big 12 Championship Game. The injury was discovered early last week; it’s not known what caused it.

The optimistic timetable for Alexander’s return is in time for the start of Big 12 Conference season. Missouri opens conference play with a game at Nebraska on Oct. 4.

That means he would miss games against Illinois, Southeast Missouri State, Nevada and Buffalo, with Mizzou really only threatened in that season opener against the Illini.

“Obviously, we all feel bad for Danario,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. “The good news about all of this is that our medical team feels the rest of Danario’s knee looks great. He had some pretty significant damage done to more than just his ACL with the first injury, but now the rest of the knee is very healthy.”

Alexander caught 37 passes for 417 yards and two touchdowns last season, despite missing five games due to different injuries. He had nine catches for 82 yards in the season opener against Illinois, but broke his wrist late in the game and missed the next three games.

After coming back for the Nebraska game on Oct. 6, he missed the Texas Tech game two weeks later. He went down again because of the torn ACL in the Big 12 title game against Oklahoma and missed the Tigers’ Cotton Bowl victory over Arkansas.

Ultimately, the decision on whether to redshirt Alexander would come from Alexander and Pinkel.

Junior Jared Perry, who caught just 13 passes for 152 yards last season, would likely take Alexander’s starting spot.

“I feel that I need to start stepping up right now, because this is my best opportunity to do it,” Perry said. “I had a bad season last year.”

If Alexander can come back at some point, it’ll be a definite boost for Missouri’s offense. When he was healthy last season, he was an impact player.

Besides the Illinois game, he had three catches for 56 yards and a score against Nebraska and eight catches for 117 yards in the victory over Kansas that clinched the Big 12 North title and vaulted the Tigers to the No. 1 ranking.