Tyler Hudanick called his teammates to discuss his decision to not return from his second knee injury.

The Seneca Valley senior offensive lineman did everything he could to return from a torn right lateral meniscus suffered in the Raiders’ 47-12 loss to Fox Chapel Sept. 5.

After being told it would be a three-to-six week recovery window, Hudanick came back in three weeks to play against Butler.

When an injury flared up in his other knee against Pine-Richland the next week, Hudanick decided to not try and make a second return.

With 21 Division I scholarship offers on the table, Hudanick decided not to rush back and sat out the final two weeks.

“It was time for me to be selfish and I talked to my teammates about it,” Hudanick said. “We had a big senior class this year and they knew what kind of player I was and what I had in mind for the future. They knew I wanted to be back on the field more than anything.”

Football players are at-risk of debilitating injuries on every play. How that impacts the next step of a career depends on the school they want to attend and level they want to play at.

Slippery Rock University football coach George Mihalik said in situations where a player he’s recruiting may have suffered an injury, he relies on tape from their junior season.

“We don’t let that be a negative in terms of our evaluation,” Mihalik said. “If the injury rehab prevents an athlete from being ready for preseason camp, that’s not a negative. Chances are they would use their freshmen year as a redshirt year.”

Hudanick, in a sense, was lucky he had the opportunity to make that decision.

Mars senior running back Josh Schultheis didn’t even make it out of the first quarter of the season opener against Indiana.

Schultheis took a carry around the right side, was dragged down to the ground and had a tackler fall on top of him, snapping his fibula.

After seven carries, 77 yards and a touchdown, his season was done.

While Schultheis hasn’t noticed a change in the schools interested in him, his rehab effort was based on making sure people didn’t change their minds. Schultheis has drawn looks primarily from Division II schools and a few Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) schools.

“I definitely wanted to get back to full strength because I know I need to prove that I’m capable,” Schultheis said. “I don’t want to tell a coach ‘Oh, my legs are still bothering me.’ That’s something they don’t want to hear.”

How college coaches view certain types of injuries has evolved. Lower leg injuries were once a major red flag.

Former Seneca Valley football coach Don Holl, who was involved with recruiting when he was the offensive coordinator and assistant head coach at Gannon University, said attitudes have changed. Two of his sons Donny, who plays at Mercyhurst University, and TJ, who will play at Colgate next season, both suffered leg injuries in high school.

“It used to be back in the day that certain injuries to lower extremities were a huge deal because the recovery was so long,” said Holl, who coached the Raiders from 2009-14. “Recovery has gotten better and you see guys in the NFL that have three ACL tears and they’re still at it. It matters what the injury is and what the long-term prognosis is.”

Schultheis went through a five-month rehabilitation process where he pushed his physical therapist to let him do as much as he could handle.

At first, he couldn’t walk. Now, he’s back to where he feels comfortable.

“It bugged me that I couldn’t be as active as I could,” Schultheis said. “I wanted to run as soon as I could jog. Then I wanted to cut and jump. I couldn’t get to a certain point fast enough that I was happy with. Healing takes time.”

Planets football coach Scott Heinauer said while Division II interest in Schultheis is still high, he’s had a few FCS schools that inquired before the season drop out.

If Schultheis had stayed healthy, Heinauer thinks things would be different.

“People were concerned about if he would come back at 100 percent or 50 percent. It’s hard to put stock into somebody or money into somebody you don’t know is going to be 100 percent,” Heinauer said. “A lot of people at I-AA decided they needed to part ways with Josh. It’s a shame. Josh Schultheis worked hard to get back to where he was before. Some people have since moved on. That’s how it is.”

Hudanick, who played in roughly five games, was still selected to the all-state teams by several publications.

Nearly all of the teams that offered him contacted him to check up on his progress.

Holl said at Gannon they were able to get a few guys that some Division I schools were wary of.

“We actually got a guy or two because we had a couple of (Mid American Conference) teams come off a guy because they weren’t sure about a prognosis,” Holl said. “We said we’re here if you’re looking and we’re going to hang with you. It’s the same story. We try to do all the research into what the prognosis would be going forward.”

Hudanick, who verbally committed to the University of Central Florida over the weekend, had to make a tough call.

But now he’s ready to take on the next challenge.

“I talked to my head coach, who’s been around and been through recruiting on both sides of it,” Hudanick said. “I did what I needed to do to get through the process.”