Gophers hoping running backs Mohamed Ibrahim and Trey Potts are 100% healthy

To say the Gophers' running back group had an eventful past 12 months would be a preposterous understatement.

* Their workhorse, 2020 Big Ten Running Back of the Year Mohamed Ibrahim, was lost for the season in the opener.

* Ibrahim's backup, Trey Potts, was knocked out for the season on Oct. 2.

* Next man up, Bryce Williams, was shelved four weeks later, and a couple of weeks after his backup, Cam Wiley, entered the transfer portal.

* The two freshmen who helped salvage the 2021 season, bowl game MVP Ky Thomas and Mar'Keise Irving, transferred to Kansas and Oregon, respectively.

When the Gophers open their 2022 season against New Mexico State on Thursday night at Huntington Bank Stadium, Ibrahim will be the No. 1 back and Potts his versatile backup and change-of-pace option. There are, however, questions their play must answer regarding their recoveries.

Both Ibrahim and Potts will see their first game action since injuries that happened a month apart. Ibrahim tore his left Achilles' tendon late in the third quarter of the opening loss to Ohio State, and Potts suffered an undisclosed injury in the closing minutes of the win at Purdue, a situation that left him hospitalized in Indiana for nearly a week.

While the ultimate proof must come on the field, coach P.J. Fleck believes the work put in and the hits taken during training camp will have both Ibrahim and Potts prepared for the live contact of game day. Fleck praised them for the leadership they've displayed and how they're mastering the offense.

"Just being able to know you're OK, you've got to go out there and play football,'' Fleck said. "It's a unique game. It's a violent game. And I think both have been able to, in their own minds, pass that test to know that they're gonna be OK.''

Linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin didn't see any hesitation from either back during training camp.

"Seeing their growth and their recovery process has been really exciting because they're back and they're faster than ever,'' Sori-Marin said. "… They were full go the whole way. They were physical.''

Recovery is a long road

The return of Ibrahim to full strength would be a huge boost to the Gophers offense. The team ran the ball 70% of the time in 2021 — an average of 46.2 rushes per game — and Ibrahim was on his way to a 200-yard game against the Buckeyes, finishing with 163 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries. A third-team Associated Press All-America selection in 2020, the sixth-year senior ranks eighth in school history with 3,003 rushing yards in only 29 games. He is 1,651 yards behind Darrell Thompson's Gophers career rushing record of 4,654 and could join Thompson and Rodney Smith (4,122) in the program's 4,000-yard club.

Of course, that depends on Ibrahim's health, and Achilles' tendon injuries often derail a running back's career. LenDale White, Beanie Wells and Arian Foster are three examples of NFL backs whose careers never returned to pre-injury form. The Los Angeles Rams' Cam Akers, who returned 5½ months after an Achilles' tendon rupture to play in the 2021 playoffs, offers a case that has succeeded so far. Ibrahim followed the example of the late Kobe Bryant in his return from a torn Achilles'.

"I didn't know what the Achilles' injury really was until I did my research after I got the surgery,'' Ibrahim said. "I realized that Kobe went through the same thing, so I started doing my research on what he did, how he came back. … And it just motivated me because I always looked up to Kobe.''

Ibrahim used his own motivation and support from family and teammates to come back from an injury that he thought only was a cramp when it happened. The gravity of the injury soon hit home.

"Learning how to walk again, being able to run, learning how to run again, stuff like that, I took for granted,'' he said.

Ibrahim said he started to feel like his old self "around January, February. I felt normal. My burst was still there.'' Midway through training camp, he declared himself "100 percent'' recovered.

Back from scary moments

In Potts' case, the serious nature of the injury suffered late in the fourth quarter of Minnesota's 20-13 win at Purdue prompted observers to wonder if he'd ever play football again.

After being treated on the sideline by the team's medical staff, Potts was taken by ambulance to a West Lafayette hospital. Athletic director Mark Coyle, head football athletic trainer Mike Sypniak and team physician Dr. David Jewison stayed in Indiana overnight with Potts. He was transferred to Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and remained there until Oct. 8 before returning to Minnesota.

Potts' injury remains undisclosed, and he has not been made available for media interviews. Fleck deferred to Potts and his family to discuss the injury. In December before the Gophers' appearance in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, Potts on Twitter announced his intention to return to play in 2022.

Fleck said Potts was cleared by "multiple medical people and multiple medical places'' before he could return. He participated in spring practice but did not take contact. In training camp, the contact came, and Potts passed that test.

Before his injury, Potts had rushed for an average of 110.4 yards and six touchdowns in filling in for Ibrahim. The fourth-year sophomore carried 34 times for 178 yards in his first career start.

Potts back at full strength would help ease the load on Ibrahim, who averaged a nation-high 28.7 carries per game in 2020 and was on pace for 40 against Ohio State before his injury.

During the training camp sessions open to the media, Potts had his same shiftiness and looked more powerful through his thighs. "He's performing at a high level right now,'' Ibrahim said. "High energy, and he looked better than he was back then.''

Both backs have endured long journeys to get back on the field, and Ibrahim shared what got him there.

"Never lose faith,'' he said. "You're gonna have hard days. You're gonna have tough days where you think that you're looking at the top of Mount Everest, and you're thinking, 'Hey, I gotta get there. I gotta get there.' But you've got to break it down into little sections. … It's a little step, step, step. And then you look down and you realize you're at the top of Mount Everest.''