Pac-12 football: ASU’s Deantre Lewis still on mend after shooting

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Only five months after suffering a gunshot wound, Arizona State running back Deantre Lewis remains questionable for the Sun Devils’ 2011 season.

“We won’t know probably for a couple more weeks,” Arizona State Coach Dennis Erickson said. “It’s really up in the air right now. He might not play at all, he might not play three or four games.”

Erickson cautioned that the football aspect of Lewis’ return is not all that important in this instance. Lewis was shot in the leg at his home in Norco in mid-February.

“I’m worried that he doesn’t come back too soon,” Erickson said. “Here’s a young man who got shot, so he deals with the emotions of the whole thing. The damage to the hamstring was much worse than people thought.”

Lewis ran for 539 yards and four touchdowns, while adding two more receiving touchdowns, in his freshman year.

“He’s a huge part of our offense, and we’ll miss him.”

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-- Douglas Farmer