Quarterback-needy teams saw one potential prospect for next year’s draft go off the board when Oregon’s Marcus Mariota elected to return to school for his senior season. Now another highly-projected quarterback will be coming off a major knee injury in the lead up to the draft.
According to Adam Caplan of ESPN, LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger suffered a torn ACL in Saturday’s victory over the Arkansas Razorbacks and will not be available to play in the team’s bowl game.
Mettenberger was 14 of 22 for 156 yards and a touchdown against Arkansas before exiting the game in the fourth quarter. For the season, Mettenberger has completed 65-percent of his passes for 3,082 yards with 22 touchdowns and eight interception. His NFL passer rating would be 112.2.
Mettenberger is considered to be one of the top quarterback prospects in the upcoming class and could be selected in the top couple rounds of the draft. Teams that want to select Mettenberger next year will have to feel confident he is recovering sufficiently from his ACL tear or he may slide farther down the draft boards than initially anticipated.