Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney passed along some bad news on the injury front during his Tuesday press conference.
Swinney said freshman offensive lineman Dietrick Pennington will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL.
“Injury wise, the biggest thing to report to you guys is Dietrick Pennington is going to be out,” Swinney said. “He tore his ACL. So, really just a big disappointment there. Going to be a great, great player, and I think a guy that as the season went on would have been a difference maker for us, for sure. He’s a lot like (fellow freshman OL) Marcus Tate as far as where he is.”
Pennington, a former four-star prospect from Evangelical Christian School in Memphis, Tenn., enrolled at Clemson this summer and played four snaps vs. SC State in his collegiate debut on Sept. 11.
“He just came in late, but his grasp of things, his physicality, his athleticism… But really disappointed, hate that for him,” Swinney said.
“But the good news for him is he was able to get to camp, was able to get good experience and learn from it. Obviously he can redshirt, and he’ll be back and better than ever.”
This marks the third big loss for Clemson on the offensive line as far as backups, with redshirt freshman John Williams (knee) and redshirt sophomore Tayquon Johnson (torn pectoral muscle) already out for the season.
“John Williams was a guy that was really going to help us this year, and obviously he’s been out, his knee, since camp,” Swinney said. “And then we lost Tayquon. Tayquon was going to really help us. So, that’s three guys that we were really counting on being contributors for us. So, disappointed with that, but we’ll keep moving forward and hopefully get those guys better sooner than later.”
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