UW football: Injured Langford has company, vows he'll return a better player
When Allen Langford takes the field as a fifth-year senior in the fall, he doesn't believe he'll be the same player he was before a left knee injury ended his 2007 season.
"I'll be better," said Langford, who has started 31 games at cornerback during his career with the University of Wisconsin football team. "I'll be better, for sure."
Don't bet against him. While recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament can be a grueling and sometimes maddening process, Langford is convinced he'll be a stronger player -- both mentally and physically -- because of it.
"It makes you appreciate being out there," said Langford, who was injured early in UW's game at Ohio State last November. "It makes me want to work harder.
"I have to work a lot harder than I ever worked before just to try to get back to where I was then. Eventually, that's going to make me better than I was before."
Recovery from an ACL injury generally takes between 6-to-9 months. Langford, who is about five months removed from sustaining the injury, said he'll be ready when the Badgers begin their summer conditioning program in June.
"It's the type of injury where you have to be very, very patient," Langford said. "You have to wait until you're fully healed to go back out there and get ready to be back involved. I don't want to rush anything."
It helps that Langford isn't going through this alone. Defensive tackle Jason Chapman, also a fifth-year senior, tore an ACL the same day Langford did. And Aaron Henry tore the ACL in his right knee a month later during practices leading up to the Capital One Bowl.
Langford and Henry have grown especially close. Not only do the two play the same position, they often ride together to class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
"We've bonded a lot more than what I would have thought," Langford said. "I've started looking at him like my younger brother."
Since he's further along in the rehabilitation process, Langford hasn't hesitated to offer advice and pep talks to Henry. Not that Henry needs many of the latter. He, like Langford, is a positive thinker who has been in attack mode ever since the initial shock of his injury wore off.
"You come in, you have a little bit of early success and everything's going well -- and all of a sudden an injury happens, and I never really had a major injury," said Henry, a key performer for the Badgers as a true freshman last season. "It was pretty tough in the beginning, but I took at it as something positive. I told myself, 'Maybe the Lord has something greater for me.' "
Henry intends to be ready in time for the 2008 season.
"Those are my plans," said Henry, who started two games at cornerback after Langford was injured. "It's going to come down to that time. If I feel that I'm not ready, then we'll handle it from there. But that's my plan. I plan to be playing this season."
Still, it hasn't been easy for Langford and Henry the last few weeks. As secondary coach Kerry Cooks works hard to get a green crop of cornerbacks ready in the event either -- or both -- of his two most experienced players at that position aren't ready in time for the 2008 season, Langford and Henry stand on the sidelines wishing they were on the field, too.
As Langford put it succinctly, "It sucks watching."
Cooks has helped keep Langford and Henry busy by making them his assistants. Henry is in charge of keeping an eye on the cornerbacks on the left side, a group that includes freshman Mario Goins and juniors Josh Nettles and Prince Moody; Langford is in charge of the right side, which includes sophomore Niles Brinkley and freshman Otis Merrill.
"It helps sometimes," Langford said. "But I feel like I can show them better than I can tell them."
Telling them will have to do, at least until Langford is healthy again. Until then, he's doing little things during practice like watching the quarterbacks drop back to pass over and over.
Anything that will give him an edge when he takes the field in the fall -- as a better player, if he has his way.
File photo/Mike DeVries/The Capital Times
Wisconsin's Allen Langford (17) intercepts ball from Indiana in front of team during the second half at Camp Randall.
