David Molk

Center David Molk will miss the rest of the season with a torn right ACL, Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez said Monday.

Molk suffered the injury on the opening series of Saturday’s 35-10 loss to Penn State, when his knee gave out without contact.

Rodriguez said Molk will undergo surgery once the swelling in his leg goes down and will miss spring practice. He should be back by summer.

“He just kind of planted funny on one of the run plays, and there it went,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a loss, but we’ll put David Moosman back at center like we did in that ballgame and move forward.”

Moosman started four games at center earlier this year when Molk was out with a broken foot. Molk returned to action Saturday, and Michigan (5-3, 1-3) scored its lone touchdown on the only possession he played.

The Wolverines had 70 yards of offense on that drive, and 180 the rest of the game.

“I would like to sit here and tell you our depth is so good that you lose one or two guys that it doesn't have any impact, but any coach will tell you, if you have great players and you lose them to injury, it's going to have an impact,” Rodriguez said. “I just feel bad for David, because he's had so much bad luck. He had bad luck with the foot, and then he works hard to come back and the very next game he has some more bad luck. It's just bad luck.”

Defensive tackle Ryan Van Bergen said Molk, his roommate, was in good spirits after doctors called Sunday to tell him the extent of the injury.

“I think he’s really good at hiding emotions,” Van Bergen said. “I think he’s obviously upset, anybody would be upset if you couldn’t play the rest of the season. But he took it really well and he just said you got to pick up the slack for me.”

Moosman has played well at guard, but struggled with snap problems in his first stint at center and again Saturday, when an errant second-quarter snap sailed out of the back of the end zone for a safety.

“I need to calm down a little bit,” Moosman said. “I think I’ve screwed up just about everything you can at center, and I can’t do that again. I’ve gotten all the bad stuff out of the way and only good things moving forward.”

Michigan’s struggling offense is dealing with several other injuries heading into Saturday’s game at Illinois (1-5, 0-4).

Running back Brandon Minor, already dealing with a lingering high ankle sprain, suffered a bruised heel against Penn State, and receivers Martavious Odoms and Junior Hemingway have injured knees.

Rodriguez said all three are day-to-day. Odoms was not expected to practice Monday.

Dave Birkett covers University of Michigan football for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by phone at 734-623-2552 or by e-mail at davidbirkett@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.