The Rehabilitation of Kobe Savage
Jun 14, 2023 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
A young man visited the Dev Nelson press box at Bill Snyder Family Stadium the other day. He wore a toothy smile, as you might be too if you gave your all and sweated and toiled for so many months. He had a mop of hair, a neatly trimmed beard and dark eyes that had seen the inside of an injury tent. He peered down at the plush green field and admired this view of his gridiron home, and it was the white block letters upon the black T-shirt that he wore that told the tale of this occasion. A single word read: "FOOTBALL."
There was a story to go along with it, of course — twists and turns and small victories and frustrations and pains and grins. He fought, oh, did he fight. He had never fought so hard. And he wouldn't quit. Whenever there was a doubt as to why he was doing it, why he was digging in, why he would retreat home only for sleep and return to dig in some more, one had to only look at the black T-shirt as a reminder: FOOTBALL.
We could start with the back peddling on Saturday mornings inside an empty stadium, with the young man yelling at his right knee as he shuffled five yards back and cut at 45-degree angles over and over again across the green turf. We could start with the lateral movements, dashing 10 yards to the east and then 10 yards to the west, and then sprinting straight north. We could start with the music, the symphony, the beat, the fact that the young man held the remote control for a sound system that filled the stadium air, controlling what he could control in a gridiron universe that can easily spin out of control. Yes, we could begin at any of these places, but perhaps it's best to start at the unfortunate beginning and the nightmare that unfolded for K-State senior strong safety Kobe Savage.
It was November 12, 2022, in Waco, Texas. K-State led Baylor, 10-0, with 5 minutes, 31 seconds remaining in the second quarter. The Bears, on second-and-9 at their own 26-yard line, relied upon the legs of speedy junior running back Craig Williams to advance the ball behind the block of 6-foot-5, 331-pound pulling guard Micah Mazzccua. Savage, who is 5-foot-11 and 206 pounds, remembers that he was lined up 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. He remembers working his way toward the ball carrier. He remembers how Mazzccua fell into him near the Baylor sideline and how he tried to plant his right leg, but something felt amiss, something just didn't feel right, and, oh, does he remember wincing as Mazzccua landed on him — not only because Mazzccua weighed 331 pounds, but because of the pop! that he heard from his right knee. Ten-thousand questions ran through his mind at once, but there was only one verdict: This was bad. For as much as he tried to make sense of it all, the pain compounded. His mind went numb. Could it be over? No, it couldn't be over. But alas, he took off his helmet.
"I knew it was over," he says. "I didn't want to tell anybody. I was too scared."
Pumped with the adrenaline from competition, Savage walked with team trainers to the injury tent behind the K-State sideline. Moments later, he emerged with a doctor and trainers and began the long walk to the visitor's locker room at McLane Stadium. Savage prided himself on having a high pain tolerance, but pain throbbed — "on a scale of one to 10, it was a 10," he says — and there was the biting angst of knowing that he could no longer help the Wildcats (they won 31-3). The worst injury Savage had ever suffered was a dislocated elbow. But he knew from the doctor's face that this was different. His family, which attended the game, rushed to join him inside the locker room. The doctor said, "We're going to give you an MRI, but we think it could be the ACL."
Savage wasn't a crier, but he burst into tears, which made him angry, because his parents had raised him to be tough. But he couldn't help it. Football was what he knew. But he knew it could be over. At least for this season. And, indeed, it was over. For now.
"That," he says, "is what hurt me the most."
Trainers iced Savage's right leg seemingly for hours. They put Savage's leg into a brace locked out at 180 degrees to keep it straight. Teammates entered the locker room to console him at halftime and the pain shot up all over again. Ten-thousand questions, none that could be answered. One question stood out above them all: Why?
Savage typically plays music on away trips. He sat in silent darkness this time. He occupied seat A1 on the flight home to Manhattan, his right leg jutting straight out, as K-State head coach Chris Klieman took the seat across the aisle. Savage thought that he had let down his head coach and his team. "I'm proud of you," Klieman said. "You're a great football player and you'll continue to be a great football player. This is just a minor setback."
The plane landed at Manhattan Regional Airport. Savage received crutches. He sat inside his car and decompressed for several moments. He turned off his phone. Everyone had seen the play on TV. Everyone knew what had happened.
"I drove home," he says, "and I made myself drive with my left leg."
That night, he prayed until he drifted off to sleep.
Savage is a native of Paris, Texas, a city of 25,000 people. It is in "Tornado Alley" and it is located 20 minutes from the Oklahoma state line. The city has a 65-foot Paris Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat at its summit. It has a "Jesus with Cowboy Boots" statue. It has the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial Museum. And it has football.
From seventh grade to his senior year at Paris High School, Savage never had a summer vacation. He awoke every morning at 6 a.m. He never missed a day of workouts. He was a triple-option quarterback who threw for 986 yards and rushed for 1,568 yards and scored 28 touchdowns. The summer before his senior season, everything changed. He moved to safety. He had no prior experience at the position. He recorded 107 tackles, eight pass breakups, two interceptions and four tackles for loss that season.
Savage spent 2020 and 2021 paying his dues at Tyler Junior College before arriving at K-State last spring, and he proved himself to be one of the most disruptive safeties at K-State in a while. He ranked second on the team with 58 tackles to go along with three tackles for a loss, three interceptions and one forced fumble at the time of his season-ending injury. With his viciousness and personality, he was a fan favorite.
He epitomized the MOB defense.
It was the third possession of Savage's first game at K-State that he introduced himself to the FBS world. South Dakota faced second-and-8 at its own 27 midway through the first quarter in a season opener that the Wildcats won, 34-0. Quarterback Carson Camp threw a short pass to a wide receiver named Javion Phelps near the K-State sideline. Phelps turned up field. Boom! Savage flew in and slammed his shoulder into Phelps' chest, sending him into the K-State sideline. Phelps went down. Hard. The sellout crowd of 50,469 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium yelled a collective, "WHOOO!"
"KOBE SAVAGE LAID THE WOOD ON THE WIDEOUT!" the TV commentator said.
Joe Klanderman, K-State's defensive coordinator, stood on the sideline near the point of impact with his mouth wide open.
"It was right in front of me," Klanderman said, "and it was the most violent thing I'd ever seen."
And now? Savage was preparing for knee surgery. Oh, he didn't go at it alone. Senior Associate AD for Student-Athlete Health, Wellness & Performance Matt Thomason, Head Football Athletic Trainer Mindy Hoffman, and their staff, were with him throughout the recovery process. They helped Savage strengthen the muscles around the anterior-cruciate ligament in the days leading to his first-time-in-his-life surgery on November 28.
It would be an anterior-cruciate ligament and meniscus reconstruction. It would be Dr. Bryce A. Palmgren sitting with Savage and outlining the procedure. As Savage understood it, in order to fix the completely torn ACL, Dr. Palmgren would clip off a piece of his patella tendon and fuse it to the ACL to provide a new tendon. Then he would entirely remove the torn meniscus.
It would require a six month recovery until Savage could perform 7-on-7 team activities.
The day after surgery found Savage in the training room at the Vanier Family Football Complex, his right leg locked out to heal the stitches, and he performed quadriceps flexes to strengthen the muscles that allow a variety of movements, including kicking, running, jumping and walking.
This would be his new universe. This would be his new grind. Even so, he earned All-Big 12 Second Team honors. The Big 12 head coaches respected his talent. He earned votes for Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year award. Earlier in the season, he had back-to-back interceptions against Missouri and Tulane, he had a season-high 11 tackles against Oklahoma to earn Big 12 Newcomer of the Week honors, and had nine tackles and a forced fumble against Texas Tech.
There was a method to Savage's instant impact. And it began with hours and hours of film study — an unflappable fascination that began in high school. He studied how players moved around, he studied their tendencies, the quarterback's cadence, or the way that he stands if he's going to pass, or if he rubs his hands for a pass, or how the offensive line sits in stance for a run. That's just the beginning. Sometimes, he watched so much film that he took naps inside the football facility, then he rose and watched more film.
He went home to Paris, Texas. Only for a couple days. For Christmas. Then he returned to Manhattan to travel with his coaches and teammates to the Sugar Bowl, which was played on December 31. Upon his return, he vowed that he wouldn't return to Paris until he could walk, no, until he could jog, no, until he could run and change direction.
For two weeks, he ran on an underwater treadmill in the team training room. Then for two weeks he ran on an anti-gravity treadmill. Every day, Savage wondered: Is there less pain? Is it getting better? His family sent him Bible verses. He phoned his mother regularly for encouragement. He prayed and prayed some more. He knew athletes had suffered a torn ACL before and had fully recovered. He determined that he would fully recover as well.
"I watched videos of Adrian Peterson before his MVP season when he tore his ACL," Savage says. "Just seeing his progression and how hard he'd worked with those different movements allowed me to progress better."
On February 13, the day after Savage's 22nd birthday, he finally walked — with a brace — on land for the first time. Nearly a month later, he walked without the brace. Then a couple weeks later, he could run without the brace.
"Just straight running," Savage says. "Just straight away. Not changing direction. Just running. I finally felt like a normal person again. Not limited. Just being able to run."
Then March 24 rolled around. That was the day that Savage began defensive back drills, back peddling, breaking 45 degrees and 90 degrees. Thomason got on Savage. Savage was trusting his knee so fully that Thomson swore that he had been practicing on his own.
One day, Savage stood on the football field all alone. He walked out to the Powercat at midfield and he laid on his back and stared at the sky.
"That Powercat," he says, "means a lot to me. I laid on it because I'm thinking I'm grateful for this opportunity and I'm grateful to be here."
When he runs in the middle of the day, he can see and feel it all: a full stadium, making tackles and interceptions and playing free against a big-time school, and the crowd, yes, the sellout crowd cheering him on.
"Football isn't even a passion anymore," he says, "it's an obsession."
On June 9, he awoke at 5 o'clock because he wanted to get into the hot tub to warm up his knees before the day's activities. After a team run, he hit the weight room. It was heavy squat day. He squatted 335 pounds three times. He hasn't yet maxed out. It's funny, he says, because sometimes when he runs, even with the brace on, he feels that his right leg is stronger than his left. And that's a great feeling.
"It feels really strong," he says.
It's been the toughest seven months of his life, as he sits inside the press box looking at the field below. He says that the knee is operating at 87 or 89 percent and projects that he'll be at full strength by mid-July.
Really, these days, he finds himself thinking about people. He is grateful for Thomason and Hoffman and their staff, and Director of Strength and Conditioning Trumain Carroll and the strength and conditioning staff. He is grateful to Klieman and Klanderman and assistant head coach Van Malone for their endless encouragement, and for never giving up on him. He is grateful for his teammates. He is thankful for his parents, Da'on Savage and Stacey Godbolt, along with his many friends, for the phone calls and Bible verses and prayers.
"Just the love and camaraderie that we have at K-State football," he says, "that's what I'm so appreciative of."
This summer, Savage is helping lead the charge for the defense. He has daily duels with quarterback Will Howard during captains' practices — "He is the best quarterback in the Big 12, and I don't care what the rankings say," Savage says. They frustrate each other on the field, the way great ones do. Savage wouldn't have it any other way. But Savage has goals. He wants to become a better leader, a team leader, a vocal leader "and be the best version of myself that I can be."
There will be a time when things will be fully back in order. It'll arrive when K-State opens its 2023 regular season against SEMO at 6 p.m. on September 2 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. It'll be easy to spot Savage before kickoff. He'll likely be kneeling in the end zone prior to kickoff. Ten-thousand thoughts will run through his head with one verdict: He is back.
"I already know I'll be in tears," he says, "just knowing I'm back with my guys. My family and people who care about me will be in the stands, and I'll be on the field, and I can just do what I love."
He stares at the football field. For now, all is quiet at the happiest place on earth.
"I look out there," he says, "and really the first feeling is excitement and joy."
He pauses.
"And I'm super eager to get back on it."
A young man visited the Dev Nelson press box at Bill Snyder Family Stadium the other day. He wore a toothy smile, as you might be too if you gave your all and sweated and toiled for so many months. He had a mop of hair, a neatly trimmed beard and dark eyes that had seen the inside of an injury tent. He peered down at the plush green field and admired this view of his gridiron home, and it was the white block letters upon the black T-shirt that he wore that told the tale of this occasion. A single word read: "FOOTBALL."
There was a story to go along with it, of course — twists and turns and small victories and frustrations and pains and grins. He fought, oh, did he fight. He had never fought so hard. And he wouldn't quit. Whenever there was a doubt as to why he was doing it, why he was digging in, why he would retreat home only for sleep and return to dig in some more, one had to only look at the black T-shirt as a reminder: FOOTBALL.
We could start with the back peddling on Saturday mornings inside an empty stadium, with the young man yelling at his right knee as he shuffled five yards back and cut at 45-degree angles over and over again across the green turf. We could start with the lateral movements, dashing 10 yards to the east and then 10 yards to the west, and then sprinting straight north. We could start with the music, the symphony, the beat, the fact that the young man held the remote control for a sound system that filled the stadium air, controlling what he could control in a gridiron universe that can easily spin out of control. Yes, we could begin at any of these places, but perhaps it's best to start at the unfortunate beginning and the nightmare that unfolded for K-State senior strong safety Kobe Savage.
It was November 12, 2022, in Waco, Texas. K-State led Baylor, 10-0, with 5 minutes, 31 seconds remaining in the second quarter. The Bears, on second-and-9 at their own 26-yard line, relied upon the legs of speedy junior running back Craig Williams to advance the ball behind the block of 6-foot-5, 331-pound pulling guard Micah Mazzccua. Savage, who is 5-foot-11 and 206 pounds, remembers that he was lined up 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. He remembers working his way toward the ball carrier. He remembers how Mazzccua fell into him near the Baylor sideline and how he tried to plant his right leg, but something felt amiss, something just didn't feel right, and, oh, does he remember wincing as Mazzccua landed on him — not only because Mazzccua weighed 331 pounds, but because of the pop! that he heard from his right knee. Ten-thousand questions ran through his mind at once, but there was only one verdict: This was bad. For as much as he tried to make sense of it all, the pain compounded. His mind went numb. Could it be over? No, it couldn't be over. But alas, he took off his helmet.
"I knew it was over," he says. "I didn't want to tell anybody. I was too scared."
Pumped with the adrenaline from competition, Savage walked with team trainers to the injury tent behind the K-State sideline. Moments later, he emerged with a doctor and trainers and began the long walk to the visitor's locker room at McLane Stadium. Savage prided himself on having a high pain tolerance, but pain throbbed — "on a scale of one to 10, it was a 10," he says — and there was the biting angst of knowing that he could no longer help the Wildcats (they won 31-3). The worst injury Savage had ever suffered was a dislocated elbow. But he knew from the doctor's face that this was different. His family, which attended the game, rushed to join him inside the locker room. The doctor said, "We're going to give you an MRI, but we think it could be the ACL."
Savage wasn't a crier, but he burst into tears, which made him angry, because his parents had raised him to be tough. But he couldn't help it. Football was what he knew. But he knew it could be over. At least for this season. And, indeed, it was over. For now.
"That," he says, "is what hurt me the most."
Trainers iced Savage's right leg seemingly for hours. They put Savage's leg into a brace locked out at 180 degrees to keep it straight. Teammates entered the locker room to console him at halftime and the pain shot up all over again. Ten-thousand questions, none that could be answered. One question stood out above them all: Why?
Savage typically plays music on away trips. He sat in silent darkness this time. He occupied seat A1 on the flight home to Manhattan, his right leg jutting straight out, as K-State head coach Chris Klieman took the seat across the aisle. Savage thought that he had let down his head coach and his team. "I'm proud of you," Klieman said. "You're a great football player and you'll continue to be a great football player. This is just a minor setback."
The plane landed at Manhattan Regional Airport. Savage received crutches. He sat inside his car and decompressed for several moments. He turned off his phone. Everyone had seen the play on TV. Everyone knew what had happened.
"I drove home," he says, "and I made myself drive with my left leg."
That night, he prayed until he drifted off to sleep.
Savage is a native of Paris, Texas, a city of 25,000 people. It is in "Tornado Alley" and it is located 20 minutes from the Oklahoma state line. The city has a 65-foot Paris Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat at its summit. It has a "Jesus with Cowboy Boots" statue. It has the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial Museum. And it has football.
From seventh grade to his senior year at Paris High School, Savage never had a summer vacation. He awoke every morning at 6 a.m. He never missed a day of workouts. He was a triple-option quarterback who threw for 986 yards and rushed for 1,568 yards and scored 28 touchdowns. The summer before his senior season, everything changed. He moved to safety. He had no prior experience at the position. He recorded 107 tackles, eight pass breakups, two interceptions and four tackles for loss that season.
Savage spent 2020 and 2021 paying his dues at Tyler Junior College before arriving at K-State last spring, and he proved himself to be one of the most disruptive safeties at K-State in a while. He ranked second on the team with 58 tackles to go along with three tackles for a loss, three interceptions and one forced fumble at the time of his season-ending injury. With his viciousness and personality, he was a fan favorite.
He epitomized the MOB defense.
It was the third possession of Savage's first game at K-State that he introduced himself to the FBS world. South Dakota faced second-and-8 at its own 27 midway through the first quarter in a season opener that the Wildcats won, 34-0. Quarterback Carson Camp threw a short pass to a wide receiver named Javion Phelps near the K-State sideline. Phelps turned up field. Boom! Savage flew in and slammed his shoulder into Phelps' chest, sending him into the K-State sideline. Phelps went down. Hard. The sellout crowd of 50,469 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium yelled a collective, "WHOOO!"
"KOBE SAVAGE LAID THE WOOD ON THE WIDEOUT!" the TV commentator said.
Joe Klanderman, K-State's defensive coordinator, stood on the sideline near the point of impact with his mouth wide open.
"It was right in front of me," Klanderman said, "and it was the most violent thing I'd ever seen."
And now? Savage was preparing for knee surgery. Oh, he didn't go at it alone. Senior Associate AD for Student-Athlete Health, Wellness & Performance Matt Thomason, Head Football Athletic Trainer Mindy Hoffman, and their staff, were with him throughout the recovery process. They helped Savage strengthen the muscles around the anterior-cruciate ligament in the days leading to his first-time-in-his-life surgery on November 28.
It would be an anterior-cruciate ligament and meniscus reconstruction. It would be Dr. Bryce A. Palmgren sitting with Savage and outlining the procedure. As Savage understood it, in order to fix the completely torn ACL, Dr. Palmgren would clip off a piece of his patella tendon and fuse it to the ACL to provide a new tendon. Then he would entirely remove the torn meniscus.
It would require a six month recovery until Savage could perform 7-on-7 team activities.
The day after surgery found Savage in the training room at the Vanier Family Football Complex, his right leg locked out to heal the stitches, and he performed quadriceps flexes to strengthen the muscles that allow a variety of movements, including kicking, running, jumping and walking.
This would be his new universe. This would be his new grind. Even so, he earned All-Big 12 Second Team honors. The Big 12 head coaches respected his talent. He earned votes for Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year award. Earlier in the season, he had back-to-back interceptions against Missouri and Tulane, he had a season-high 11 tackles against Oklahoma to earn Big 12 Newcomer of the Week honors, and had nine tackles and a forced fumble against Texas Tech.
There was a method to Savage's instant impact. And it began with hours and hours of film study — an unflappable fascination that began in high school. He studied how players moved around, he studied their tendencies, the quarterback's cadence, or the way that he stands if he's going to pass, or if he rubs his hands for a pass, or how the offensive line sits in stance for a run. That's just the beginning. Sometimes, he watched so much film that he took naps inside the football facility, then he rose and watched more film.
He went home to Paris, Texas. Only for a couple days. For Christmas. Then he returned to Manhattan to travel with his coaches and teammates to the Sugar Bowl, which was played on December 31. Upon his return, he vowed that he wouldn't return to Paris until he could walk, no, until he could jog, no, until he could run and change direction.
For two weeks, he ran on an underwater treadmill in the team training room. Then for two weeks he ran on an anti-gravity treadmill. Every day, Savage wondered: Is there less pain? Is it getting better? His family sent him Bible verses. He phoned his mother regularly for encouragement. He prayed and prayed some more. He knew athletes had suffered a torn ACL before and had fully recovered. He determined that he would fully recover as well.
"I watched videos of Adrian Peterson before his MVP season when he tore his ACL," Savage says. "Just seeing his progression and how hard he'd worked with those different movements allowed me to progress better."
On February 13, the day after Savage's 22nd birthday, he finally walked — with a brace — on land for the first time. Nearly a month later, he walked without the brace. Then a couple weeks later, he could run without the brace.
"Just straight running," Savage says. "Just straight away. Not changing direction. Just running. I finally felt like a normal person again. Not limited. Just being able to run."
Then March 24 rolled around. That was the day that Savage began defensive back drills, back peddling, breaking 45 degrees and 90 degrees. Thomason got on Savage. Savage was trusting his knee so fully that Thomson swore that he had been practicing on his own.
One day, Savage stood on the football field all alone. He walked out to the Powercat at midfield and he laid on his back and stared at the sky.
"That Powercat," he says, "means a lot to me. I laid on it because I'm thinking I'm grateful for this opportunity and I'm grateful to be here."
When he runs in the middle of the day, he can see and feel it all: a full stadium, making tackles and interceptions and playing free against a big-time school, and the crowd, yes, the sellout crowd cheering him on.
"Football isn't even a passion anymore," he says, "it's an obsession."
On June 9, he awoke at 5 o'clock because he wanted to get into the hot tub to warm up his knees before the day's activities. After a team run, he hit the weight room. It was heavy squat day. He squatted 335 pounds three times. He hasn't yet maxed out. It's funny, he says, because sometimes when he runs, even with the brace on, he feels that his right leg is stronger than his left. And that's a great feeling.
"It feels really strong," he says.
It's been the toughest seven months of his life, as he sits inside the press box looking at the field below. He says that the knee is operating at 87 or 89 percent and projects that he'll be at full strength by mid-July.
Really, these days, he finds himself thinking about people. He is grateful for Thomason and Hoffman and their staff, and Director of Strength and Conditioning Trumain Carroll and the strength and conditioning staff. He is grateful to Klieman and Klanderman and assistant head coach Van Malone for their endless encouragement, and for never giving up on him. He is grateful for his teammates. He is thankful for his parents, Da'on Savage and Stacey Godbolt, along with his many friends, for the phone calls and Bible verses and prayers.
"Just the love and camaraderie that we have at K-State football," he says, "that's what I'm so appreciative of."
This summer, Savage is helping lead the charge for the defense. He has daily duels with quarterback Will Howard during captains' practices — "He is the best quarterback in the Big 12, and I don't care what the rankings say," Savage says. They frustrate each other on the field, the way great ones do. Savage wouldn't have it any other way. But Savage has goals. He wants to become a better leader, a team leader, a vocal leader "and be the best version of myself that I can be."
There will be a time when things will be fully back in order. It'll arrive when K-State opens its 2023 regular season against SEMO at 6 p.m. on September 2 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. It'll be easy to spot Savage before kickoff. He'll likely be kneeling in the end zone prior to kickoff. Ten-thousand thoughts will run through his head with one verdict: He is back.
"I already know I'll be in tears," he says, "just knowing I'm back with my guys. My family and people who care about me will be in the stands, and I'll be on the field, and I can just do what I love."
He stares at the football field. For now, all is quiet at the happiest place on earth.
"I look out there," he says, "and really the first feeling is excitement and joy."
He pauses.
"And I'm super eager to get back on it."
Players Mentioned
QB
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