Fresno State quarterback Derek Carr set a new Mountain West Conference single-season record for passing yards last season, an achievement that becomes all the more impressive knowing Carr played through a torn abdominal muscle and sports hernia.
"No one knew about it and I wasn't going tell anybody, because I didn't want it to distract our team," Carr said last week at the Mountain West media days in Las Vegas. "Playing hurt last year was hard, but I'm healthy this year and I have a whole offseason of being healthy and working on things that I can get better at."
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Carr threw for 4,107 yards and 37 touchdowns, leading the Bulldogs to a share of the conference title and earning Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year honors.
Carr, who starts his senior season at No. 32 on Daniel Jeremiah's Talented Top 50, finally underwent surgery to repair the injury in January and expects to be able to execute more of the playbook now that he has recovered.
"I couldn't roll out," Carr said. "We tried to hide it the best we could, but we couldn't roll out, I couldn't do a lot of the zone-read stuff, which is big in our offense."
A healthy Carr should easily cement his status as the top senior quarterback in the 2014 NFL Draft and could join his older brother David, who was selected No. 1 overall in 2002, as a first-round pick.
Follow Dan Greenspan on Twitter @DanGreenspan.
