Minnesota Football may lose Shannon Brooks 3-5 weeks due to foot injury.

You know that Shannon Brooks injury confirmation we’ve all been preparing ourselves for? Well, it’s here (via Joe C at the Strib):

Gophers running back Shannon Brooks will be out three to five weeks with a foot injury, meaning he might miss the start of the season, coach Tracy Claeys said during his Twin Cities Dunkers appearance Wednesday.

Claeys didn’t give specifics about the injury, but the coach is scheduled to give an update when he meets with the media Saturday.

Now that we’ve got a rough timeframe to work with, let’s talk about how bad this is for the Gophers. Please note that my thoughts on this could change based on the details of the injury that Claeys may (or may not) release to the press this weekend.

On the one hand, this is clearly not a good thing. Three weeks means Brooks is likely out for the home opener against Oregon State. Five weeks opens the possibility that Brooks could return in time for Colorado State. If you’re being truly convservative (probably wise given what we don’t know) then you should add a week and assume he’s out until the Big Ten opener at Penn State.

On the other hand, the games he misses in the 3-5 week scenario are against teams that Minnesota should beat even without Brooks. The Big Ten season is when the Gophers will definitely need Shannon’s home run running ability, and if he is able to return at 100% for Penn State and play out the rest of the season without incident then this whole thing fades from our memories pretty quickly.

TL;DR summary: We don’t actually know how serious this is yet. If you want to freak out that uncertainty is your opening. If you want to chill out the timeframe Claeys gave today should be reason enough. Or you could always just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.