WVU Football

West Virginia Football Clarifies Concussion Protocol Concerning CJ Donaldson

Published

2 years ago

October 4, 2022

MORGANTOWN, W.Va – As a follow up to West Virginia head coach Neal Brown announcing CJ Donaldson is under the concussion protocol guidelines, WVU Assistant Director of Athletics and Football Communications Mike Montoro released a statement to ensure everyone was well informed on what that means.

“Our (referring to WVU) concussion protocol is produced by WVU Doctors and Medical staff. The protocol gets sent off approved by NCAA each year prior to start of camp,” Montoro said in a message to the media. He prefaced the statement by saying it was from Vincent Blankenship, who serves as WVU’s assistant athletics director and head athletics trainer for football.

The statement continued to describe the process for an athlete to return to action in more detail. “Athlete must be 24 hours symptom free before advancing through phases. Then student-athlete must complete full concussion testing and be back at baseline or better testing before final clearance,” Montoro added.

In addition to providing a status update on Donaldson, Brown also wanted to make sure to thank the Texas medial staff for their work in helping to take care of CJ Donaldson after he had to be carted off the field in Austin Saturday night. The standout WVU freshman running back, who has been emerging this season after having never played the position before, suffered a head injury that forced him into the concussion protocol process.

Report: CJ Donaldson Alert, Stable After Being Carted Off Field During Texas Game

Soon after the game ended, reports indicated that Donaldson was in stable condition and moving his extremities, which was not something the fans in attendance saw besides a quick thumbs up while being taken into the locker room. Since then, Donaldson himself has also released a brief statement. He said he was “okay” and thanked fans for their support in a tweet with an image.