Barack Obama was still the President when Cam McCormick arrived on Oregon’s campus for his first season of college football.
That was in the fall of 2016, and McCormick redshirted.
Fast forward to Week 1 of the 2024 season, and McCormick was still playing for the Miami Hurricanes. With 6:48 to play in the first quarter of Miami’s season-opener against rival Florida, McCormick hauled in a nine-yard pass from Cam Ward for the Canes’ first touchdown of the season.
It was a nice throw and catch between the two Cams, but the same question was on a lot of folks’ minds:
How is this dude playing his ninth season of college football?
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The short and simple answer is that McCormick has dealt with several injuries and health issues and the NCAA has been surprisingly accommodating.
He didn’t play for Oregon in 2016 because he tore his ACL during his senior year of high school. In January 2017, he was one of three Oregon players hospitalized after intense workouts, which led to the team’s strength and conditioning coach being suspended and McCormick being diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, which the Cleveland Clinic describes as “a rare but serious condition where your muscles break down and release toxins into your blood and kidneys.” Still, McCormick played in all 13 of the Ducks’ games that following season, scoring once on six catches.
But McCormick couldn’t seem to escape injuries. In the first game of the 2018 season, he broke his left fibula and tore a ligament in his left ankle. He was done for the year and his 2019 season was derailed too after, according to USA Today’s Jordan Mendoza, “doctors discovered another fracture caused by a screw placed in his ankle.”
The pain from the ankle didn’t go away, and McCormick sat out the 2020 season as well. He later learned that the pain was from two screws rubbing against a tendon, eventually tearing it. After getting that resolved, McCormick was finally back on the field for Oregon in 2021 but tore his Achilles in a Week 2 game against Ohio State. In 2022, McCormick finally played in all 13 games for just the second time in his college career, scoring three touchdowns.
In 2023, he transferred to Miami, following former Oregon coach Mario Cristobal there. McCormick told USA Today:
“(Cristobal) believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, when I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s easy to say, ‘Hey, we don’t want you on the team anymore. Maybe you need to medically retire.’ But he kept saying, ‘You’re going to be back better than ever. You got this.’”
McCormick went through 2023 injury-free. But still, he had only played three full seasons of college football. He had lost three full seasons due to injuries, and played a combined three games in two others. Plus, there was the NCAA’s COVID-19 ruling, which meant that the 2020 season didn’t count toward eligibility clocks.
And so, McCormick was granted a ninth season of eligibility last January. He’s 26 years old now and has already proven to be a weapon for Miami’s offense in what could be a crucial season for Cristobal.
His peers in the 2016 recruiting class were guys like Dexter Lawrence, Ed Oliver, Nick Bosa, Miles Sanders and Brian Burns, who have all been in the NFL now for several years. With a great season at Miami, maybe McCormick will finally join them next year.
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