Robert Marve simply cannot catch a break. The sixth-year senior suffered additional damage to his surgically-repaired left knee in the loss to Notre Dame on Saturday.
Danny Hope confirmed on this radio show that Marve had additional damage to the knee but that the full extent of the damage is unknown. Hope also said the MRI showed a "potential tear," according to ESPN's Big Ten blog.
I'm not sure what a potential tear is, but it's hard to imagine Marve playing college football again. It would seem more likely to me that the coach is, no pun intended, just hoping against hope.
This would be the third significant knee injury for Marve and, as I said, would likely signal the end of his time as a football player. Much of the attention will likely focus on what this means to the Purdue football team in 2012 but we find ourselves simply feeling terrible for the guy, much the way we felt worse for Rob Hummel than the Purdue basketball program after he tore his knee for the second time in October 2010. It's a horrible thing to have to go through once, frankly, and Marve may be facing it for the third time.
I'm sure a million jokes will spring forth from other sites and wiseguy commenters in the coming days and weeks about Purdue's seemingly cursed history with ACLs, but right now we can't find very much to joke about in this.
We wish Robert "Marve-lous" Marve nothing but the best and will have more for you as it develops.
