Clemson Loses Starting Offensive Lineman for Season

Clemson gets good news and bad news on Marcus Tate's knee, Dabo Swinney announced Sunday.

Jason Priester/All Clemson

Clemson starting left guard Marcus Tate will miss the remainder of the 2022 season with a knee injury, head coach Dabo Swinney announced Sunday. 

Tate left the game in the first half of Saturday's 40-10 win over Miami and didn't return. 

"He'll be it's not it's not like an ACL surgery, so he'll be fine. That's the good news. The bad news is he's going to be out. But for us, I'm happy for him and that he was able to play 11 games and really got a lot of confidence this year."

Tate started every game this season and had shown tremendous improvement from his freshman year in 2021.  

"Still a young player, a sophomore and really, really grew a lot this year," Swinney said. "He's very confident in his ability. He just played so much faster and stronger and than he did last year as a freshman. And that's a result of his experience and the work that he put in.

"It's unfortunate that his season is gonna be cut short, but a blessing that he was able to have the type of year that he was had, grow like he did, but also, the severity of the injury is anytime you have to have surgery, it's not good but it could be a lot worse."  

Swinney believes Tate will be back for spring but likely won't have any contact or go full speed. 

The Tigers (10-1 overall, 8-0 ACC) face rival South Carolina on Saturday at noon before going to Charlotte on Dec. 3 for the ACC Championship Game against North Carolina. 

Junior Mitchell Mayes is expected to take Tate's place at guard. Mayes played 63 snaps against Miami after Tate went down. He also filled in as a starter at right guard for Walker Parks when he was out last week against Louisville. 

"Mitchell 's done well," Swinney said. "I'm proud of him. He's basically started two games in a row now and we've had back-to-back 400-plus yard games."

Swinney said Collin Sadler, a freshman, has one game left under the freshman redshirt rule, and the Tigers still want to be able to preserve his eligibility. 

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