Kenny Orjioke performed the same movement after three straight plays during UCLA’s practice on Wednesday.
He readjusted the brace on his right knee.
That brace is protecting Orjioke’s surgically repaired anterior cruciate ligament, which he tore last September in the game versus Arizona State.
Coach Jim Mora knew the injury was serious right away.
“It’s not a good deal. I feel bad for him,” said Mora on Oct. 2, 2014. “We’ve talked to him, he’s in good spirits.”
But the redshirt junior linebacker admitted after practice on Wednesday that he was far from spirited at that time.
“The first month for me personally was horrible,” he said.
The torn ACL sidelined Orjioke for the remainder of the 2014 season. It gave him a long time to think about how fatal the injury could be to his future career.
That’s when one of Orjioke’s teammates stepped in to ensure that his thoughts remained positive.
“I had a really good talk with (then-redshirt senior inside linebacker) Eric Kendricks,” Orjioke said.
Kendricks, the leader of the Bruin defense at the time, told Orjioke that he was once in the same position, sitting out for months at a time due to injury. For Kendricks, it was an ankle injury that required him to miss the last game of the 2013 season and several months afterwards.
“There were days that (Kendricks) didn’t think he could play,” Orjioke said.
Yet Kendricks came back in his senior season and won the Butkus Award for the nation’s top linebacker. He told Orjioke that he could make the same kind of injury recovery – as long as he remained positive.
“(Kendricks told me) just to continue to stay focused and stay positive,” Orjioke said. “That was the biggest thing.”
Now, Orjioke is steadily making his comeback. After missing spring camp due to rehabilitation, he’s back to playing with full contact in practice.
The knee brace is new to him, and it could be viewed as a hindrance or a reminder of the ACL injury. But Orjioke said he doesn’t really think about the brace, no matter how much he has to readjust it.
“I’m sure it would be really different if I didn’t have a brace on,” Orjioke said. “But I’m not really worried about that right now.”
For now, Orjioke is competing every day to win a starting outside linebacker position for the Bruins. His top competition is redshirt senior Aaron Wallace. Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley is anxious to see what Orjioke can do once he gets more comfortable playing again.
“The one thing he does is he handles coaching well, he wants to be good,” Bradley said. “So those are two good things to start with.”