Andrew Luck isn’t the only Stanford quarterback drawing headlines. The quarterback of the Cardinals’ defense, Shayne Skov, suffered a knee injury on Saturday that will sideline him for the 2011 season, ESPN’s Kevin Gemmell reports.
Skov has been the key for the Cardinals’ defense in their first three games, all wins, holding San Jose State to three points, Duke to 14, and Arizona to 10. He left the Arizona game in the second quarter, and didn’t return.
In those three games, Skov tallied a total of 19 tackles, five behind the line of scrimmage, and 1.5 sacks. He leads the team in tackles this season, following up on his team-leading 84-tackle 2010 season, which earned him a Pac-10 honorable mention.
He capped it all off with 12 tackles and three sacks in Stanford’s Orange Bowl win over Virginia Tech.
Gemmell reports that one player referred to Skov as “the leader” of the defense.
Fortunately for Stanford, they have a bye week this week, and can use the time to figure out what they’ll do at middle linebacker. For now, Jarek Lancaster looks like the go-to guy at MIKE. He notched 15 total tackles all of 2010, and has 12 so far in 2011.
He’s still green, but far less so than true freshmen James Vaughters.
Replacing Skov’s team-leading numbers will be hard enough, but replacing a defensive leader makes the task even taller.
