CLEMSON — After almost two full years off the field, Clemson running back Jay Haynes made his return in the 37-0 win over Charleston Southern.
Haynes suffered a torn ACL in the 2024 ACC Championship win over SMU. At the time, no one envisioned it taking him 679 days to make it back. The senior rushed nine times for 27 yards in the victory.
The hope is that Saturday marked the end of that long, arduous journey and that Haynes is back for good.
“I really can not even explain the feelings,” the running back said. “I have dressed out a couple of times, but I wasn’t able to get on the field. Just being able to be out there with my brothers, who I worked out the whole spring and summer with, wathcing them grind and also grinding with them, was a feeling I really can’t explain. Just very happy to be back out there.”
On that December night against SMU, Haynes looked primed to step into a featured role due to an injury to Phil Mafah. However, on the opening play of the third quarter, he brought a kickoff out of the end zone and took a direct hit to his knee. He had surgery two days later.
Coming into the season, Haynes had rushed for 330 yards in his Clemson career with four touchdowns. He also had more than 200 return yards.
Haynes was expected to make it back at some point during the 2025 season, but his road back was plagued with setbacks, substantially delaying his return.
“I would really say frustrating,” Haynes said. “Obviously, I came back a couple of times, and then there was maybe a little tweak here and there. I really did not have a lot of time to think about it a lot. Every time something happened, I just put my head back down and got back to work. Being around the people I am surrounded by, they did not really let me think about the injury a lot. Coaches, players — anybody in the whole room. They just made me think positive, keep my head down and keep working.”
And one thing the long layoff has done is give him more than enough time to fully trust the surgically repaired knee.
“It is different for everybody,” Haynes said. “Some people see an ACL, and they come back soon, you know, very early. But it took me about seven months with all the rehab. You are mainly trying to get your quad back. But I would say it really took me seven or eight months to kind of trust it. After that, it is just getting the stuff to support it. I have been pretty confident in it lately.”
