Mo Kaba leans on teammates, staff, injury past as he grinds through rehab process

South Carolina linebacker Mo Kaba knew it as soon as it happened.

On the verge of his breakout season for the Gamecocks last year, Kaba went shooting into the backfield to tackle Arkansas QB K.J. Jefferson. But as Jefferson dodged his pursuit and another Carolina defender also engaged with the QB, Kaba came down awkwardly and felt the familiar twinge in his knee.

For Kaba, who tore the ACL in the same knee in high school, there was no doubt what had just happened.

Season over. Breakout year delayed.

Kaba, who is now just a couple of days shy of six months removed from that Week 2 injury, joined the Gamecock Central Takeover on 107.5 The Game on Wednesday to discuss his journey and rehab so far as he marches towards his return.

“I’m feeling way better,” Kaba said. “Way better than the first time I had my surgery. It’s a good thing when you go through something for the first time before. Luckily — it sounds bad but — luckily, it happened to me already. But I’m feeling way better, I’m feeling way healthier. It’s a slow process with the ACL; you can never rush something like this. But I’m having a great time with my training staff, just day by day making strides and seeing the progress I’m making and everything.”

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Kaba will not participate in football activities this spring.

But the Clinton, N.C. native is now several months into an extensive rehab process that’s gone much smoother than the first time around.

At the time, Kaba was in high school and did about two rehab days per week.

With South Carolina’s technology and top-notch staff at his disposal, Kaba rehabs pretty much every day, listening to his body on when he needs to dial it back in terms of weight.

“When we came back for winter workouts I was pretty much like two or three months in, so that gave me enough time to actually do the same workouts as everybody,” he said. “I have a great weight room staff. I’m working with Chip Morton right now. He has a lot of experience with injuries and stuff like that. For example, when we’re on lower body days like squat days and stuff like that, I will go to the side and pick a rack and him and me will work just one on one doing certain workouts, getting me back that range of motion and power. You’ve just got to take it slow, day by day, start it off with little weight and just see the progress I’m making.”

Kaba is not yet running on hard ground but is able to run on an anti-gravity treadmill at 65 percent of body weight. Soon, he will graduate to running in a pool.

Kaba, who is at about four and a half months out of surgery, will run on solid ground at around 5 1/2 or six months out of surgery.

He will ultimately look to return to the pre-injury form that had him on the verge of a breakout 2022 season, emerging as arguably the team’s best linebacker and earning a starting spot before the injury.

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“I never felt better going into a season, since like high school,” Kaba said. “I felt like I was literally playing high school ball at a certain moment because the game was just slowing down to me, I was understanding all of our terminology, our plays and everything, and my body just felt great, I didn’t have to worry about my knee anymore. I was playing freely. I was just having fun, I was just knowing that year was going to be my year, but God had other plans.”

While he admits there were some tough moments at first, Kaba has leaned on both his prior experience with the same injury as well as his teammates — especially upperclassmen Jordan Strachan who suffered the same injury on the same day — to help him through what he calls “a great rehab process.”

“I just had to accept it for what it was,” Kaba continued. “You can’t be too sad on this type of injury. I realized from the first time I got hurt, I got too depressed and it didn’t help me any. I had to force myself to get out of that dark space. For the first week, you have to let that emotion out. I was sad, I was crying a little bit. I was just like, ‘Why? I felt like I did everything right.’ It was just taken from me out of nowhere. But once I got out of that mode and it was time to grind, I just knew I had to lock in and just keep my head forward and just keep working.”

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