Clemson tight end Braden Galloway could tell while working out with Xavier Thomas in South Carolina over the summer that his teammate and close friend wasn’t feeling up to snuff.

Thomas, the talented junior defensive end and former five-star prospect, contracted the coronavirus after the Tigers’ football team departed campus for spring break in March. Then, as Clemson was getting ready to start summer workouts back on campus, Thomas suffered another setback when he came down with strep throat.

“Xavier’s my boy,” Galloway said after Clemson’s practice Tuesday. “We worked out together over the summer in Florence. I was down there. We worked out a lot at his house and around his neighborhood. So, I think he had some sicknesses going on before then. Then we started working out together and then recently, I think maybe a few weeks before camp started, he just got hit with some bad sicknesses right away.”

Thomas, of course, missed a lot of practice time in fall camp as he continued to get his body back in football shape after missing most of the summer workouts and conditioning programs due to lingering side effects from the coronavirus and strep throat.

Thomas was 11 pounds overweight before camp started, a negative consequence of being quarantined while recovering from COVID-19, and Swinney said at the beginning of camp that Thomas was “nowhere near” the physical condition he needed to be in to play football.

“It sucks for a guy like that who’s so talented like that, who has so much potential like that,” Galloway said of what Thomas has had to deal with. “But X has been working his butt off, trying to get back right.”

Swinney said last week that while Thomas is still a work in progress as he tries to get back, he has been doing really well and the Tigers were able to work him back into practice. According to Swinney, he has responded well to everything and been very engaged.

As camp began on Aug. 5, Swinney said Clemson’s plan was to redshirt Thomas and try to get him ready to play late in the season and use him like they did linebacker James Skalski in 2018 when he recovered from a shoulder injury.

But now, thanks to the NCAA’s decision to grant all fall sport athletes an extra year of eligibility regardless of whether they compete this season, the Tigers don’t have to redshirt Thomas this season and can play him in as many games as he is able to play in once he is ready to return.

“I’m not really sure if they have any timetable set for when he’s planning on coming back, but with this rule, he can come back any time and the year won’t count,” Galloway said. “So, I feel like that’ll be a positive for him so he’ll be able to get his body back right, get in shape how he wants to be in shape and come back and be the best version of himself.”

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