Rutgers Lose Star Player to Brutal Season-Ending Injury

Résumé détaillé

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are going to be without arguably their best player for the rest of the 2026 season.

Rutgers wide receiver KJ Duff is going to miss the rest of the 2026 season.

According to ESPN's Pete Thamel, Duff underwent season-ending high-ankle surgery. Duff is expected to resume football activities in January.

Duff played in eight games this season and caught 45 passes for 774 yards and a career-high nine touchdowns. He was dealing with an ankle injury ahead of the game against Michigan on Oct. 31, per Richard O'Leary of The Knight Report.

Duff played in the game but appeared to aggravate the injury early in the first half. He did not play in the second half, and after the game, Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano commended Duff for battling with the injury.

“KJ Duff, we talk about sacrifice around here, KJ Duff, he literally lived in the building all week to get treatment, to try to play with his teammates,” Schiano said. “He wanted to be able to help win this game. And, you know, I was afraid he wasn’t going to be able to, but he was in warm-ups. He seemed that he could, but you could just tell pretty early on that it wasn’t going to happen. And then he got it rolled on a couple times. So, we’ve got to get him better. We’ve got to get him healthy. It’s unfortunate because he was having a tremendous year.”

Duff just finished his third season at Rutgers. He was selected to the All-Big Ten Second Team by the coaches and the media after posting 60 receptions for 1,084 yards and seven touchdowns. In his freshman season, Duff posted 27 catches for 425 yards and one touchdown.

Duff could not return to Rutgers in 2027 and enter the NFL draft. ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. has the star wide receiver ranked No. 18 in his NFL Draft rankings for next year.

"You just aren't going to find wideouts with his skill set very often," Kiper wrote. "Duff is a matchup nightmare at 6-foot-6, and offensive coordinators can line him up as a wideout, "move" tight end, or even H-back because of that frame. Duff routinely uses his size to box out defenders.

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