Rice safety Daveon Hook leaves Armed Forces Bowl with scary injury

Rice senior safety Daveon Hook woke up Friday morning preparing for his final collegiate game to solidify a four-year run with his university.

But with 1:16 remaining in the third quarter of the Owls’ 41-10 loss to Texas State in the Armed Forces Bowl, a terrifying moment unfolded. Hook collided with a Texas State blocker while attempting to make a tackle and experienced a collision to the head/neck area. The hit left him down on the field for over 10 minutes.

The 28,243-member Amon G. Carter Stadium crowd remained completely silent during that entire timeframe. After initial checkups, Hook was immobilized on a stretcher by a team of medical personnel and transported outside of the stadium. He was seen moving his face and arms, covering his eyes with his hands as he boarded the stretcher. Rice’s entire roster took the field during the long hiatus, engaging in a group prayer for their injured teammate.

“When they took him off the field, he had feeling and movement everywhere,” Rice head coach Scott Abell said postgame. “There was a lot of precaution, as there should be taken. We’ll see. I really don’t want to respond much, because I don’t know a whole lot. We’ll check on him ASAP.”

Abell confirmed Hook talked to him as he departed on the stretcher.

“He was moving everything,” Abell recalled of that moment. “We’ll get him checked out, and hopefully he is all good.”