Today I wrote a story that probably won’t surprise you too much. In short, there’s no incentive to blame ACL injuries on artificial turf. There’s a lot of evidence that says artificial turf is not dangerous and is actually safer than grass, no matter how old the fake stuff is.

I quizzed Dr. Michael Meyers, who’s conducted injury research since 1986 and turf research since 1997. The latest five-year results of one of his studies show that FieldTurf, the brand WVU uses, witnesses 15 percent fewer substantial injuries, 20 percent fewer severe injuries, 24 percent less ACL trauma and 10 percent fewer combined ACL and associated injuries than natural grass.

Meyers further found that FieldTurf fields that were new, one to three years old, four to seven years old and eight or more years old had fewer injuries than a grass field, which is theoretically new every season.

“But they’re developed to reduce injuries, not to eliminate injuries,” Meyers said. “Because of the violence of the sport, they’ll never guarantee that.”

His verdict? Injuries and ACL tears happen everywhere, and we fixate upon it in the preseason because football is in focus. But WVU’s players are as safe as they can expect to be. It’s hard to argue with the explanation.

It’s called infill weight, and a five-year study of high school football games found that artificial turf, regardless of the brand, is safer when there is more than 6 pounds per square foot of infill weight ­­­­­­­— basically, sand and rubber pellets.

The higher the infill weight, the sturdier, more durable and safer the surface.

“Artificial turf is known for its consistency from end zone to end zone, unlike natural grass, which can look like a mosh pit in November and a mud pit between the 20-yard lines,” Meyers said. “The greater your infill weight, the more likely you are to maintain a consistent surface.”

The study showed that players on a field with an infill weight of at least 9 pounds per square foot had a 20.5 percent lower rate of injury than they did on a field that measured between 3 and 5.9 pounds per square foot. Severe injuries were lowered by 16.8 percent when the infill weight was at least 9 pounds per square foot.

WVU had FieldTurf installed at its practice field before spring football and at Mountaineer Field during the spring. The infill weight is 9 pounds per square foot at both fields.

“Despite the bad luck that we’ve experienced over the course of the past few weeks, the new turf actually makes our players significantly safer,” said Alex Hammond, WVU’s director of football operations.

That said, Meyers and I went down the road a bit and started talking about an individual’s susceptibility, and he agreed with a point others have raised: College football players subject themselves to a greater likelihood of injury.

Some of that is in the story at the end. What follows is not.

In reality, it’s not just college football players, though they fit the description. But anyone who increases their athletic activities is therefore exposed to a greater risk of injury. If you run once a week, you’re less likely to trip and fall than someone who runs five times a week. If you’re doing all the offseason football weightlifting and sprints and drills and associated workouts, you’re not only likely to trip and fall, but you’re likely to tax all the muscles, tissue, bones and ligaments you use.

Meyers referenced the vastus medialis obliqqus, or “that inside part of your quad above your knee,” and also, “that big, thick muscle you see bulging on cyclists.” It controls the patella and the tracking of the knee, so it’s important.

“Look at all the muscles — the primary and secondary muscles — that are helping to stabilize ligaments,” he said. “You know how we are: A little is good, more is better. We want to hold that university squat record that’s on the wall, and that little extra could cause a little bit of muscle fatigue and (muscle) breakdown. And how are athletes taught? Shake it off. You can damage ligaments, you can damage muscles, you can damage tissues in the weidght room. You can do damage doing sprints.

“A lot of athletes play 7-on-7 or 5-on-5. Some of them are out there by themselves making sure their sprint times are good, and so on. All of those are athletic exposures, which can lead to overuse.”

So, run or bike too much, squat too much, go to too many yoga classes and the VMO stands a greater chance of going bad on you, which can cause serious trouble.

He thinks overexposure and overuse are issues that contribute to injuries and not merely ACL injuries. Defensive lineman Jaleel Fields tore an ACL running in the summer. Safety Dravon Askew-Henry and linebacker Brendan Ferns tore ACLs practicing in the preseason after working out throughout the summer. No one knows if those are coincidences or consequences, but it’s at least worthy of your consideration.

Meyers makes sense, and he thinks there’s a way to fix or adjust things, but, staying in the world of college football, Meyers knows that’s going to be difficult because players are encouraged and even legislated — this is the third year of the 8-by-8 rule — to be involved and active, which might be synonyms for overexposed and overused.

So what does a team do? Limit offseason participation? Not happening. Curtail preseason practices? Feasible, but the NCAA allows 29 practices and only 12 of those can be full-contact days. WVU won’t use all 12.

“You’re not going to prevent any injury,” Meyers said. “You hope to reduce the likelihood. That being said, if you start treating football players like ballroom dancers and reduce contact and reduce this and that, will you increase injuries in of the areas of the body?

“It’s an interesting theory, and we don’t know yet, but everyone is worried they might have the same number of injuries but they’re just different ones. It’s such a multiplicative problem that there really isn’t a situation that will prevent everything.”