Crandall Head, the younger brother of former Illini standout Luther Head and very highly touted recruit by the Illini, will miss his HS senior season due to an ACL tear. He will have surgery to repair it next week.

Well, this certainly isn't good news I suppose, but I have seen people make full recoveries from ACLs with the proper amount of rehab. Hopefully this will not set him back for the 2010/11 season, and even more hopefully as we have seen with Miami Thomas, the other knee remains intact.

I heard on the Paul Klee on WDWS reporting that there is almost no chance whatsoever that Head will play at all his senior season at Crane, and that it would be in everyone's interest for him to just prepare mostly for his freshman season here in Champaign. The injury apparently happened this summer in Las Vegas, and was only diagnosed with an MRI recently.

You may be thinking, why wait so long with a torn ACL? Wouldn't it have hurt like hell? My sister has had two ACL replacements, and after the first couple days of terrible pain, you get used to it, and it ends up just giving out on you and aching rather than having a terrible constant pain. He may have just thought it was a bad sprain at first.

Crandall has yet to sign his letter of intent, and knowing the way recruiting services work, his rating will probably fall as a result of this injury. But ACL injuries are very commonly recovered from with rehab, and I don't think we will see much of a drop off in Head's potential as an Illini.

More updates as they occur.