Jalon Daniels’ shoulder injury led to tweets, controversy and a long road to recovery
Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels learned a painful yet valuable lesson last football season.
That lesson? Don’t take anything for granted.
Early in the 2022 campaign, Daniels led KU to a perfect 5-0 start and found himself in Heisman contention. ESPN’s College GameDay even traveled to Lawrence for the matchup between No. 19 Kansas and No. 17 TCU — KU football’s first-ever GameDay appearance.
All eyes were on Kansas football for the first time in years. Then, Daniels and KU hit a real speed bump. Daniels injured his shoulder in KU’s 38-31 loss to TCU.
“I told my mom, ‘(I think) we are able to go 5-0; if we play our cards right and train like we need to (in the) offseason, we can go 5-0,’” Daniels told The Star. “‘That sixth game is going to be the test.’ Then, in the sixth game, I ended up getting hurt. I wasn’t able to finish that game at all.”
That’s where the lesson emerged.
“... It just keeps sticking with me that you never know when your last play is going to be. You never know, so keep playing until it’s your last play.”
The injury also brought with it some tweets ... and controversy.
A few days after that TCU game, an area reporter tweeted that Daniels was “expected to miss the rest of the season” with a Grade 3 right shoulder separation. (That post has since been deleted.)
Hours later, Daniels refuted the report and tweeted: “Sheeesh…That’s News to Me.”
Daniels doesn’t use social media much, but he felt it was important to respond to the report.
“One of my biggest pet peeves is when people speak about me and it’s stuff that I’ve never heard of before,” Daniels said. “I don’t like rumors. Don’t start rumors about something I’ve never heard of. How do you know I’m out for the season? I’ve never heard that I was out for the season. So, I don’t like stuff like that.
“I’m getting notifications on my phone, ESPN (saying), ‘Jalon Daniels out for the year.’ Family members text me, ‘Oh, you’re out for the year? Why didn’t you say nothing?’ All this and all that. So, now it’s not just a tweet you said for clout or whatever. Now you have people who are close to me asking me questions like, ‘When did you tell them that you weren’t playing the rest of the year?’ Questioning how I am going about certain things.”
Daniels said he took that report personally.
“That was disrespectful (from) him to me as a man,” he said. “So I just looked at it and said, ‘Well, that’s news to me. I didn’t know that.’
“Then it was the fact that it was blamed on my family. They said that my family is the one that told (him) that — I don’t know who in my family would have told (him) that.”
Daniels ultimately missed four games but still put together a special season.
He led KU (6-7, 3-6 Big 12) to its first bowl game appearance in 14 years, a 55-53 triple-overtime loss to Arkansas in a Liberty Bowl thriller at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.
In nine games, Daniels threw for 2,014 passing yards with 18 passing touchdowns and four interceptions, while running for 425 yards and seven more touchdowns. Daniels made the All-Big 12 second team after his stellar season.
He has spent all offseason working on his shoulder.
Daniels has done different exercises to strengthen his arm and throwing motion while constantly checking in about his shoulder with KU’s training staff.
“It’s been good, man; I can’t complain too much at all,” Daniels said. “I feel like I am on track to where I need to be. Just the same ‘prehab’ I was doing before the injury. ‘Prehab’ is better than rehab. Just staying active with the training room and the trainers.”
This story was originally published June 28, 2023 at 12:34 PM.
