Whittier Christian football coach Sergio Gradilla confirmed some good and bad news from Friday night’s three-way scrimmage at El Rancho that included Bosco Tech.

Gradilla confirmed that star nose tackle Jeff Worthy, who committed to Boise State, went down with an injury on the first play of the game.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the injury doesn’t appear to be as serious as first thought.

“It’s bad news but it could have definitely been worse,” Gradilla said. “He planted his foot on the very first play and felt a little tweak on his knee. He got an X-ray on Friday and the doctors are calling it a sprain, so we’re optimistic about it.”

Gradilla said Worthy is somewhere between day-to-day and week-to-week but said it was doubtful the 6-foot-4, 285-pound CIF-Southern Section Mid-Valley Division first-teamer would play in next Friday’s Zero Week season-opener at Ontario Christian.

“We’re going to be very careful,” Gradilla said. “We’re almost to the point where we’re going to keep him out of the first game.”

Despite Worthy’s potential absence on Friday, Gradilla isn’t too worried.

“We’re a tremendous defense with Worthy and still pretty good without him,” Gradilla said. “We didn’t allow a score in the scrimmage at all and that was without him. Plus, we’re deep. We have other guys to step in and this gives us the luxury of not having to rush Jeff back.”

Gradilla noted he was impressed with the play of junior varsity call-up Joel Rhone on Friday. The running back broke a couple of key runs.

My take: Whew! I guess there won’t be any rumors about a cover boy jinx since Worthy is on the front of the inaugural Prep Xtra magazine along with La Mirada’s Isaac Luatua. But just in case Isaac, it may not be a good week to go motorcycling.