Oregon freshman wide receiver Mycah Pittman injured his shoulder on Saturday. We now know the severity of the injury, as head coach Mario Cristobal has come out and announced that Pittman will miss six-to-eight weeks.
The shoulder injury is, in fact, a broken collarbone.
Mycah Pittman Injured
Impact on Oregon
The impact of this injury is huge. With a week one matchup against the Auburn Tigers looming, Oregon will need all hands on deck.
Not only will they need all hands on deck for that matchup, but the receivers on the team last season, outside of Dillon Mitchell, couldn’t catch the ball. All reports out of camp indicate nobody has been as sure-handed as Pittman.
With Brenden Schooler already out with a foot injury, this wide receiver core is thin. On top of Pittman’s injury, freshman wide receiver JR Waters is out after having foot surgery, leaving this touted freshman group of receivers at only two healthy players.
A lot of pressure was already on returners Jaylon Redd and Johnny Johnson III to step up their production and not drop nearly as many passes as last season. A lot of pressure was also on newcomer Juwan Johnson, but now that pressure is only increased.
On top of that increased pressure, reports have come out of practices of Juwan Johnson beginning to suffer from dropped passes. That’s not something Oregon needs. Johnson had issues with drops at Penn State.
With a receiving group that hurt Justin Herbert a lot last season because of drops, any injury is bad news. An injury to someone who’s been maybe the best in the group this offseason? Brutal.
Timeline
If some of the guys listed above can step up, the loss of Pittman could be mitigated until he is back. Pittman is out for Auburn, Nevada, and Montana. The first game he could be back is Stanford, but that’s really stretching it. That also feels very unlikely, based on Cristobal’s comments.
Collarbone injuries can be tricky. If he is to miss that Stanford game, he should have a decent chance to be back on October 5th against Cal, following a bye week.