After practice on Thursday, Joker Phillips announced that starting running back Raymond Sanders has sustained a slight cartilage tear in his right knee. The injury occurred on a kickoff return in last Saturday’s game against Central Michigan. Sanders underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on the knee this morning and is expected to miss “two to three weeks”. The injury leaves UK without half of the “thunder and lightning” duo that I wrote about yesterday for this weekend’s game against Louisville http://www.ukathletics.com/blog/2011/09/running-game-relying-on-unique-edition-of-thunder-and-lightning.html. Freshman Josh Clemons will take Sanders’ starting spot. The Wildcats lose the back with the most experience on the roster, but the injury affords an opportunity to other players whom the staff has wanted to play but hasn’t had the chance to so far this season.”Josh will start and it will give us an opportunity to see some of those other backs,” Phillips said. “We’ve been wanting to get them in the game; now we have to get them in the game.”Phillips said that the first in line to pick up the slack will be sophomore Jonathan George, but said that others like freshman Marcus Caffey, junior CoShik Williams and redshirt freshman Brandon Gainer could also get opportunities.

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