Gophers wide receiver Drew Wolitarsky suffered a high ankle sprain in Saturday's 28-24 loss at Illinois, and the injury could lead the team to pull a redshirt from one of its freshman receivers.

Wolitarsky had just hauled in a 35-yard pass from Mitch Leidner when his right ankle rolled under the Illinois defender. Wolitarsky limped to the sideline and was unable to put any weight on the ankle. The sophomore has 10 catches for 106 yards this season.

On his Sunday radio show on 830-AM, coach Jerry Kill said Wolitarsky's injury is "not good."

Later, Kill told the team's beat writers, "We've got four or five [receivers] who can play, but do you pull a redshirt off? Because if one more goes down -- you know, you've got five games left. That's the whole bad thing about all that. So we've got a lot of work to do this week, got a lot of healing to do and a lot of work to do."

The Gophers had true freshman Jerry Gibson on their 70-man travel squad to Illinois. He has yet to play this year, but that's one redshirt that could be pulled. He can play tight end, but the Gophers had him ready to play receiver at Illinois.

The Gophers were getting true freshman wide receiver Isaiah Gentry ready to play this season before he tore an ACL. They also think highly of their three other true freshmen receivers -- Melvin Holland Jr., Conner Krizancic and Desmond Gant.

OTHER AILMENTS

A quick rundown on the other medical news:

* RT Ben Lauer re-aggravated his ankle injury.

* Kill said RT Jonah Pirsig, TE Maxx Williams and TE Drew Goodger all threw up on the sideline during the game. RB Berkley Edwards had thrown up on Friday night.

"It's no excuse, just the flu or whatever," Kill said.