Inside Maason Smith's surgery and initial recovery from LSU football star's torn ACL

BATON ROUGE — Maason Smith was in so much pain.

He couldn't eat.

He couldn't sleep.

He could barely even move.

Simple tasks become difficult ones after ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction surgery. But for Smith, they turned into impossible undertakings because of his refusal to take his prescribed painkillers.

"He didn't want to take the pain pills," Cara Morgan, Maason Smith's mother, said. "... Because he (didn't) want to be quote on quote hooked on pain pills."

For three days following Smith's surgery to replace his torn ACL — an injury LSU football's star defensive tackle suffered on the first drive of the Tigers' season opener against Florida State in New Orleans last September — he did not take any pain-killing medicine besides Extra Strength Tylenol, which Morgan claims did nothing to combat her son's pain.

The solution to his agony was literally in front of him. But his strong-willed nature and stubbornness kept him in a state of anguish.

"I thought I was going to have to drive down there and force him to take them because I'm like, 'I'm not going to get any rest because you're not getting rest,'" Morgan said.

Eventually, Smith finally took his medicine. It was the first step in his recovery to return to the field, which he is finally expected to make when No. 14 LSU hosts Grambling State on Saturday (6:30 p.m., ESPN+).

As evidenced by the pain he put himself through, the first few days following Smith's injury were not easy for him to navigate. But Morgan knew that her son had the right tools to get through this adversity and become greater on the other side.

He's "a unique animal" for a reason.

"A setback is just, in many cases, a platform for a great comeback," Morgan said.

The injury

Smith hopped in the air to celebrate, only to land on his left leg in pain.

It was the first quarter and Smith had quickly penetrated through Florida State's offensive line, forcing Seminoles running back Lawrance Toafili to bounce his run to the outside. It allowed safety Major Burns to swoop in and tackle Toafili for a celebration-worthy 4-yard loss.

That's when Smith's ACL snapped.

"I kind of had an idea of what happened but I really wasn't sure," Morgan said.

Once Morgan arrived in the locker room where Smith was being examined, he was already upset. Preliminary examinations from LSU's medical staff determined that he had probably torn his ACL.

"I could just remember just the anger," Smith said. "And just, I don't even know how to explain it. I was real mad, dissapointed, you know? Because you go from being up here and then going down here in the blink of an eye."

The MRI he received the next morning and the diagnosis from Dr. Brent Bankston confirmed the bad news.

"He was pretty taken aback by the whole thing," Morgan said.

The surgery

The only good news about Smith's injury was that he had the right person by his side.

Morgan is a Family Medicine Specialist at Oak Street Health in Jackson, Mississippi, and has been in the medical field since graduating from the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans in 1997.

After graduating, she began her training at Baton Rouge General Medical Center and worked with Dr. David Pope, who still works at Baton Rouge General. Morgan respected Pope from their time together, enough so that she called him more than 20 years later to "pick his brain" about her son's injury.

"I got a call from her out of the blue just a week after the injury," Pope said. "... I hadn't heard from her in 15-20 years."

Pope recommended Dr. Larry "Chip" Bankston perform his surgery. Bankston was the team physician for the New Orleans Saints from 2017-20 and also a graduate of the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans.

The reconstruction surgery Chip Bankston performed on Smith, Morgan said, is a sturdier procedure than what other athletes typically receive.

Smith's surgery, the patellar bone technique surgery, reconstructed his ruptured ACL by taking a piece of his shin bone and his kneecap to form the tendon that would replace the fully torn ligament. Bone plugs — or bone blocks — were also inserted on the ends of both bones to help keep the new tendon in place.

An alternative ACL reconstruction surgery for Smith — the hamstring autograft technique surgery — would have involved using a hamstring tendon(s) as the ligament replacement instead of parts of his kneecap and shinbone. But both Pope and Morgan said that the hamstring technique was a less sturdy reconstruction surgery than the patellar bone technique.

"That's generally considered the strongest, best structural graft for high-performance athletes, particularly (for) football players and linemen because they're putting more stress on their joints," Pope said.

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The comeback

Smith eventually underwent the surgery roughly a month following his injury. But Morgan admits he wasn't a "happy camper" on the day of his procedure.

"He was discouraged, of course," Morgan said. "His ego took a big hit."

But the surgery was successful and, once his pain subsided, his road to recovery officially began.

Micki Collins, an associate athletic director at LSU and LSU's director of medicine, was the one assigned to help Smith through the recovery process. Morgan quickly grew to trust Collins with her son's rehab, as Collins occasionally sent her video clips of Smith's progress.

But Morgan's trust wasn't the only trust Collins gained.

"(Collins) was basically the biggest part in (my rehab)," Smith said. "Just coming in here, sitting with her every single day and just her being able to motivate me through that long process and just having my back."

By the time spring practices rolled around, Smith's knee progressed to the point where he could participate as a non-contact participant. Once fall practices began, he could fully participate in practices.

This all suggested that Smith would be on track to play in LSU's season-opening rematch against Florida State, almost a year to the day of his injury. But then, there was another unexpected setback.

The NCAA suspended Smith for the Tigers' season opener for participating in an autograph signing a month prior to the start of NIL. So instead of chasing FSU quarterback Jordan Travis and bulldozing through offensive linemen, Smith stood on the sidelines with a clipboard as Florida State steamrolled LSU in Orlando, 45-24.

"I really was just telling myself, 'I just missed a whole year, one game ain't going to hurt me,'" Smith said.

Smith playing probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the lopsided defeat. But there is no denying the potential impact he can bring to LSU's defense. He had four sacks in seven games during his last healthy season as a freshman.

He was a five-star recruit coming out of high school for a reason.

"His flexibility on our defense provides a new dimension that we're excited about getting him back," coach Brian Kelly said Tuesday.

Morgan said she believes every setback comes with a lesson. It's a credo she has tried to instill into Smith from a young age.

It's why she hopes that when he steps back on the field at Tiger Stadium on Saturday, he will have grown and matured as a person, changed by an experience that was one of the most challenging moments in his life.

"I honestly feel like I'm a totally different person," Smith said, "mentally and physically."

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Koki Riley covers LSU sports for The Daily Advertiser. Email him at kriley@theadvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter at @KokiRiley

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Maason Smith, LSU football star's ACL surgery and initial recovery