During his weekly call with the media on Monday, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney shared that kicker Robert Gunn has been battling a quad strain, which has kept him from kicking in practice for the last two and a half weeks.
New news for the media and fans: people wondered why Gunn has not been given an opportunity to get back to kicking field goals in games. Swinney had mentioned Gunn taking on the long-field goal attempts, but we did not see that against Wake Forest.
“They have just been trying to nurse him through the week and get him ready for game day so he could kickoff,” Swinney said. “Obviously, he is a weapon with that, but he has been battling some soreness there and some swelling. I think he is trending in a good direction, and hopefully, he can get back out there and start competing again.”
There was no indication of when he got injured, only that he is injured. Currently, Gunn is not kicking in practice, but the plan is to get him back to kicking this week.
“He has not kicked in practice. I think they are going to let him kick this week for the first time on a very limited pitch count,” Swinney said. “He has literally, for the last couple of weeks, just shown up on game day and kicked off. That is it.
“So, he has not had a chance to get back out and compete for the job. We certainly are looking forward to that because this kid is super, super talented. He needed a little bit of a reset. Jonathan has definitely brought some maturity and a little bit of confidence to that point. I think that is ultimately going to be good for Robert. He is eager; I know he about has all the soreness out of his leg. He is eager to get back out there and start competing. We will see how it goes.”
Clemson has a Week 7 bye for Gunn to get healthy before their Week 8 matchup against Miami.