It was past 1:00 a.m., about a year ago, on a high school football field in Powder Springs, Georgia, when Taj Griffin played the last snap of his senior football season for McEachern High School.
Griffin was living up to his five-star recruiting status that early Sunday morning, rushing for three touchdowns and 150 yards on 22 carries against North Gwinnett in the night cap of the annual, season-opening game of the Corky Kell Classic – two days filled with seven high school football games featuring the best teams in the state of Georgia.
Three-hundred and sixty days after Griffin suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his knee, he returned to the end zone for the first time since his injury. Griffin, who finished his second game in Autzen Stadium with 14 carries for 61 yards and a touchdown, took a pitch from Bralon Addison and jogged three yards into the end zone for the score as Oregon beat visiting Georgia State on Saturday afternoon, 61-28.
Griffin’s touchdown is an indication that he’s on his way to becoming the player he was before he injured his knee.
“The sky is the limit [for Griffin],” Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich said. “He’s a very talented guy and he’s totally scratching the surface of how good he can be.”
It’s been a process for Griffin, and his teammates know exactly how arduous it can be to return from a significant knee injury. Oregon wide receiver Devon Allen, like Griffin, suffered a torn ACL on the opening kickoff of the Rose Bowl against Florida State last New Year’s Day.
In the offseason, Allen and Griffin shared the curse of rehab together. When Griffin first arrived last winter, Allen said he immediately committed to a rehab regiment, training his knee to run with the same speed and agility that made him one of the best running backs in the country a couple months before.
But along with the physical repair, learning to trust a knee that broke down wasn’t easy, either. And some of Griffin’s teammates noticed.
“You can tell that during rehab that he was trying to trust that knee again,” Oregon quarterback Taylor Alie said. “But now, he’s playing “Taj football” and it’s a heck of a blast to watch.
“Watching him play today, It’s unbelievable. He’s matured as a person and as a player. When you see him do what he does on the field, it’s unbelievable”
Allen, who caught three passes for 28 yards on Saturday, is a couple months behind Griffin in the rehabilitation process. Watching Griffin play against Georgia State, and hearing how confident the freshman running back is after his injury, gives Allen confidence in his own recovery.
“Whenever I ask [Taj] how he feels,” Allen said, “he says he feels normal, 100 percent and like nothing ever happened. That’s good to know that in a couple months I’ll feel that way.”
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Oregon freshman running back Taj Griffin is back to playing his game
Joseph Hoyt
September 18, 2015
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