Jordan Strachan shares tough reality of dealing with injuries, making his return
South Carolina defensive end Jordan Strachan has been there. He knows what some of his teammates are going through right now.
Injuries have hit South Carolina hard so far. The Gamecocks will be down at least five players heading into week two versus Furman.
One guy who won’t be absent Saturday is Strachan. It’s almost a surprise to say the least. Around this time last year, his season came to an end before it really started.
But after a year of recovering from the second season-ending knee injury of his career, Strachan is back in action. He made two tackles in a 31-17 loss to North Carolina last Saturday.
[Win a Spencer Rattler-autographed football]
“The last time was September something against Arkansas last year,” Strachan said, trying to remember the last time he played in a game. “So it felt good to get back moving and those types of things.”
The road to getting back onto the field was a challenge to say the least. After dealing with a long-term injury once before, going through it a second time wasn’t what Strachan had in mind. But he admitted it wasn’t as bad this time around.
“It’s a long process, dude, it’s just long,” he said. “There’s just a lot you got to do every day working. There’s lots you got to do on your own. I think that’s why I’m able to do what I need to do because I’ve been through this and was very successful.”
In a way, Strachan knows exactly what his banged-up teammates are feeling. Not being able to be out on the field and help contribute for the Gamecocks.
But Strachan knows as well as anyone that the game doesn’t stop when he or anyone is down. It just keeps going.
“That’s the game of football. Football has injuries, so next man up. It sucks but life goes on. We can’t stop playing. Just got to move on,” Strachan said.
[Get news from GamecockCentral via email]
And that’s exactly what the Gamecocks will have to do. They’ll look to bounce back after a tough outing in Charlotte last Saturday.
“It’s hard going out there playing a ranked team in the first game, but we was up for the challenge. As bad as we played, we still could have came out with the win,” Strachan said.
“We’ve got to charge it to the game, come back this week and everybody step it up a notch. That’s what we’ve got to do. We can’t go back, can’t fix it, just step it up.”
