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Notes: Cal to be without its best back against Ole Miss

MORE: Five things - Ole Miss | Video: Justin Wilcox interview

OXFORD | Cal will be without its most versatile offensive player for the rest of the season.

Senior running back Tre Watson suffered an unspecified lower-body injury during the first quarter of Cal’s 33-20 win over Weber State and left the game for good shortly after a run a quarter later.

He used crutches and had a brace on his right knee during Monday’s practice.

Last season, Watson ran for 709 yards and four touchdowns and caught 21 passes for 241 yards and four scores. He averaged 4.9 yards per carry and and had five catches this season. He entered the year with 2,400 career total yards.

“It’s never easy,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said to reporters on Monday. “You feel for a guy like that, who has put so much time and effort into the program. We’ll have his back, and now it’s going to be the next man up at that position.”

Patrick Laird, a walk-on who received a scholarship during the preseason, had 191 yards rushing and three touchdowns in Watson’s absence against Weber State and likely gets the bulk of the carries moving forward.

"We expected him to get on the field and help us," Wilcox said. "He's a special person and he has our respect."

He also had a 54-yard touchdown catch against North Carolina.

Senior 6-foot, 245-pound running back Vic Enwere is listed alongside Laird on the depth chart. He averaged 5.5 yards on 61 carries a season ago but only has 41 yards on 23 rushes this season — a 1.8-yard average.

PRACTICE RAN SMOOTHLY WITHOUT LUKE'S PRESENCE

Ole Miss spent the weekend preparing for Matt Luke’s absence from practice Tuesday, and it appears to have gone well without the head coach.

Luke spent the past two days listening to Ole Miss’ NCAA Committee on Infractions hearing in Covington, Kentucky, while his team had Monday off and practiced indoors Tuesday afternoon, in preparation for a road trip to Cal at 7:30 p.m. (PT) Saturday.

Luke said after the Rebels’ 45-23 win over UT Martin that his standard practice is to allow offensive coordinator Phil Longo and defensive coordinator Wesley McGriff to handle their sides of the ball without interference.

“One thing that I really appreciate with coach Luke, and I think the players do too, is he is very sincere and direct and upfront with you about everything,” Longo said. “I can’t speak for Wesley, but I would assume that he appreciates the way I do the trust that Matt has in the two of us. He's so busy with his head football coaching duties… that he allows Wes and his staff and myself and my staff to go coach and game plan.”

Luke said he’s an overseer and a motivator so practice wouldn’t be much different without him, and quarterback Shea Patterson, the reigning SEC Offensive Player of the Week, said that was true about Tuesday. Luke will be at practice on Wednesday.

Offensive coaches Derrick Nix and Maurice Harris were also in Covington the past two days.

Luke spoke to the team about his likely absence in the past days and spent Sunday preparing the schedule and routine, so things would go as seamlessly as possible.

“Coach Longo and coach McGriff are great leaders and we’re lucky to have them both,” Patterson said. “They were at practice today, and obviously things are a little different when you don’t have the head coach but coach Luke did a good job of addressing us and telling us what was going on and to trust it. Nothing really changed much.”

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