Tyler Johnstone re-tears ACL, will miss all of 2014

After injuring his ACL in his right knee in the Alamo Bowl against Texas last December, Oregon left tackle Tyler Johnstone re-tore the ligament and will miss the entire 2014 season. Johnstone will have surgery on Friday.

The news is crushing to Oregon and without a doubt incredibly frustrating for Johnstone. Just last month, he had been cleared by doctors to return to practice and had just started getting comfortable on it again. It usually takes around 8-12 months to recover from the injury. Oregon's season opener on August 30 is exactly eight months since Johnstone first tore the ACL on December 30.

Earlier in the spring, Johnstone had talked to CSNNW.com's Aaron Fentress about recovering from the injury and sounded optomistic at the time, especially considering he had bulked up by adding about 10 pounds of muscle and was weighing in at 285 pounds. Mark Helfrich said Johnstone had been "working his tail off" to bounce back from the torn ACL.

Last season, Johnstone had extended his streak of consecutive starts to 26 games and was named to Athlon's Pac-12 All-Conference 2nd team. Johnstone was a crucial piece to an offensive line that allowed on average just 1.38 sacks per game, third fewest in the conference.

Johnstone had been named to the Rotary Lombardi watchlist and had the potential for a big year with the Ducks.

Likely stepping in will be Andre Yruretagoyena, who appeared in seven of the first eight games last year in a reserve role.