Neal Brown Provides an Update on Burks, Lathan and Others

West Virginia University safety Aubrey Burks and Trey Lathan left Saturday night's game versus TCU.

Burks left in the first half after running down in coverage on a punt and was unable to get up after the play. The situation immediately became concerning when the medical staff placed Burks in a neck brace and strapped him onto a medical cart. 

Lathan was clearly in pain after he was in on a tackle in the second half, and he too would need help leaving the field on the medical cart. 

The WVU athletic department provided an update later in the night, stating the two needed to stay in Ft. Worth Saturday night for further observation. On Sunday, Burks was cleared and walked under his own power, meanwhile, Lathan remained in the hospital, and had season-ending surgery. 

On Monday, head coach Neal Brown for his weekly press conference and provided an update on the two Mountaineers. 

Burks, all tests were negative, and he is, for what that was, he's in good spirits and he's going to be okay," Brown said. "That was scary but best possible results. All his tests were negative and so, he'll go through protocol and then be on his way."

"Trey had successful surgery yesterday, continued Brown. "He's gonna miss the year obviously, but he's expected to make a full recovery. 

I want to praise our medical team, our trainers, our Doc's, I thought they did a tremendous job and then I want to [give a] huge thank you to TCU their medical staff, their training staff, they're extremely helpful. Their trauma team and their docs, they handled the surgery yesterday and so, Aubrey and Trey, we're gonna fly them back tomorrow. Looking forward to getting them back. And but I wanted to hit that at the front."

West Virginia offensive linemen Wyatt Milum and Tomas Rimac also left the game with injuries, but neither should miss significant time. 

"Milum got poked in the eye, kind of unfortunate, happened after the play, Brown said. "He wanted to play, his eye was completely shut. If it was a boxing match, they would have stopped the fight because he couldn't see. So, we didn't think it was in his best interest to play."

"Tomas, I think its too early to tell. I think it would be a struggle if were playing on Saturday this week but because we don't play this week, I think we'll see how it goes. Its not something that's going to keep him out an extended period of time but [for] Houston, I think it's too early to tell."

SPEAR Hershey McLaurin also suffered an injury. 

"I think he could have gone back in the game on Saturday, it was kind of a coach's decision," Brown said. "He did some good things early, but we'll see on him. I think he'll be fine." 

Tirek Austin-Cave has missed the last four games and Brown noted he is day-to-day with a lower body injury and doesn't believe it's season-ending. 

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