MORGANTOWN - In the span of a week, West Virginia football lost two defensive players to season-ending injuries. In the same amount of time, some fans lost their minds.
Injuries will do that to people, and certainly many of you hurt for safety Dravon Askew-Henry and linebacker Brendan Ferns, who both tore the anterior cruciate ligament in their left knee. Some of you ache for the player and the pain he endures and the rehabilitation process that follows. Some of you wince about what it means for the defense.
Others believe there's an explanation. It's not enough for something to just happen. For some people, there has to be someone or something to blame. Once, they say, is an accident. Twice is a trend. You can forgive the first. You must prosecute he second. Surely, something must be wrong, and it didn't take long for some to find a common denominator.
The Mountaineers have a practice field with artificial turf that is just a few months old. WVU wasn't losing a player a week before the new turf arrived, so clearly new artificial turf can cause injuries.
"No," said Dr. Michael Meyers, an associate professor at Idaho State University who's conducted injury research since 1986 and field research since 1997. "No, it doesn't."
In fact, evidence says the Mountaineers are and should continue to be safe.
WVU uses FieldTurf, and that company is known as the best in the business. It dominates the market share. But there's an exceedingly important measurement out there to prove players are safe.
It's called infill weight, and a five-year study of high school football games found that artificial turf, regardless of the brand, is safer when there is more than 6 pounds per square foot of infill weight - basically, sand and rubber pellets.
The higher the infill weight, the sturdier, more durable and safer the surface.
"Artificial turf is known for its consistency from end zone to end zone, unlike natural grass, which can look like a mosh pit in November and a mud pit between the 20-yard lines," Meyers said. "The greater your infill weight, the more likely you are to maintain a consistent surface."
The study showed that players on a field with an infill weight of at last 9 pounds per square foot had a 20.5 percent lower rate of injury than they did on a field that measured between 3 and 5.9 pounds per square foot. Severe injuries were lowered by 16.8 percent when the infill weight was at least 9 pounds per square foot.
WVU had FieldTurf installed at its practice field before spring football and at Mountaineer Field during the spring. The infill weight is nine pounds per square foot at both fields.
"Despite the bad luck that we've experienced over the course of the past few weeks, the new turf actually makes our players significantly safer," said Alex Hammond, WVU's director of football operations.
The latest five-year results of a separate Meyers study shows that FieldTurf witnesses 15 percent fewer substantial injuries, 20 percent fewer severe injuries, 24 percent less ACL trauma and 10 percent fewer combined ACL and associated injuries.
It's just difficult to argue artificial turf fields aren't safer, no matter how old they are. Meyers found that artificial turf fields that were new, one to three years old, four to seven years old and eight or more years old had fewer injuries than a grass field, which is theoretically new every season.
He said that was "absolutely shocking," but it also reinforces the value of artificial turf surfaces.
"But they're developed to reduce injuries, not to eliminate injuries," Meyers said. "Because of the violence of the sport, they'll never guarantee that."
The Mountaineers nevertheless lost two players to ACL tears during camp, that after using the same practice fields in the spring and losing no one. It's a bummer, but it's not uncommon. The University of Miami also lost two players. Ditto the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills. Look around and you can find many more.
"It's early in the season, it's a slow news cycle and we're all waiting for football to start, so to some extent, all we've got is injuries to dwell on," Meyers said. "Before the season is over, almost everyone is going to have at least one blown ACL on any surface.
"We tend to hone in on that, and coaches do the same thing. People want to blame something. I always joke and say, 'When you blow an ACL on natural grass, who are you going to sue? God?' No. You go limping home and say, 'It's football.' "
And these are football players. Askew-Henry hurt his knee when he jumped to defend a pass and landed awkwardly. Ferns was running to make a tackle and planted peculiarly. Those are two simple actions inextricably attached to the sport. There was no way to prevent either injury short of sitting out that fateful play.
"We all like to use the word 'prevent,' but you cannot prevent. Period," Meyers said. "You can't prevent concussions. You can't prevent ACLs. You can't prevent anything unless you put everyone in a bubble."
So the Mountaineers dismiss any assertion that either player - or a future player - was susceptible because he wasn't physically prepared. They believe they're victims of really bad luck. They defend "one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the country," and they credit Mike Joseph and his staff him for the way players have succeeded in college and the NFL.
"As a staff," Hammond said, "we believe our players are so well conditioned that we avoid having a rash of injuries that usually happen during this time of year."
All that conditioning work in the winter, spring and summer puts players in position to avoid injuries, but there's an argument that the lengthy offseason asks too much of bodies without providing enough time to recuperate. Lifting weights, improving cardio, running routes, throwing passes, rehearsing coverages and all the other activities take a toll, whether large or small, on muscles, tissue and ligaments.
And then the preseason begins.
"Anytime you increase athletic exposure, you increase the opportunity for injury," Meyers said. "All that athletic exposure leads to a buildup of overuse. We've got to stop the overuse. How we're going to do it, I don't know."
Contact Mike Casazza at 304-319-1142 or mikec@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikecasazza and read his blog at http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/wvu/.