James Wiggins will not play for the Cincinnati Bearcats this season.

UC coach Luke Fickell confirmed the junior safety will be sidelined with a knee injury for a significant amount of time.

"He is a freak, but I don't know how freaky he really is," said Fickell after the Bearcats defeated UCLA 24-14 on Thursday. "For the future of himself I think it will just be great to have him back next year."

Wiggins suffered the injury Monday in practice and the medical staff informed Fickell and UC about the severity roughly 24 hours before the season-opener kicked off.

Sophomore Ja'von Hicks started in Wiggins place. Hicks had an interception, a fumble recovery but also missed a tackle on a UCLA touchdown and had two costly penalties.

"I know I was down a bit there on Wednesday when we got the news on James," Fickell said. "They didn't bat an eye. They kept battling. They prepared Ja'von. They prepared (fellow safety) Kyriq McDonald. We kind of had that idea that, hey, we're going to play these guys. We didn't know we weren't going to play without one but they had done a great job throughout camp and it really showed up (against UCLA).