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LOGAN — Utah State head coach Matt Wells had a surprise for his team Monday — he welcomed Travis Seefeldt to practice while the defensive lineman recovers from a serious car accident on June 26.
Seefeldt was back at practice Monday following a car crash in rural Cache County involving four other Utah State student-athletes, including three other football players.
Seefeldt's recovery will likely take a little bit longer, Wells has said. But that made his mere presence at practice that much sweeter.
Seefeldt returned to a team meeting, which you can see in the video above, and the applause was boisterous as he walked into a room on campus and saw many of his teammates for the first time since his release from a local hospital in July.
The senior defensive lineman was injured along with teammates Edmund Faimalo, John Taylor and Adewale Adeoye, who have all returned to team functions, as well as former softball player Sarah Vasquez in a car accident while the group was returning from a trip to nearby Newtom Dam. The driver of a semitrailer truck hit Seefeldet's SUV, which rolled through a stop sign and pushed the vehicle several hundred feet into the front yard of a nearby home before coming to a stop.
None of the injured athletes were wearing seat belts, and all were hospitalized with varying degrees of injuries. Seefeldt was the final Aggie athlete to be released from the hospital, and it is unlikely he will play this season.
Utah State athletics hopes to get a medical hardship waiver and a sixth year from the NCAA to make Seefeldt eligible in 2016.
