The Tar Heel football program announced prior to Saturday’s game with the Charlotte 49ers that a key starter on defense will is on the shelf for today due to injury.
The program confirmed that he will have a procedure on his lower body injury sometime this week and will miss a couple of weeks. Head coach Mack Brown said the injury occurred when Rucker “felt something in the weight room.”
This is a big loss for the Tar Heels on the edge of their defensive line. In the opener against Minnesota, Rucker racked up four total tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack and three quarterback pressures while showing some more consistency in the run game than he did a year ago. That performance built off an amazing breakout season in 2023 where he finished with 61 total tackles, 15.0 tackles for loss, 8.0 sacks and 60 quarterback pressures, the latter of which ranked fifth in the FBS.
The hope is that Rucker can be back and ready to go for the conference opener with the Duke Blue Devils, but for the time being, the team will be relying on a group of young guys to step up in his absence. Sophomore Beau Atkinson is the guy that will probably see the biggest boost in snaps, but redshirt freshmen Tyler Thompson and Jaybron Harvey both will see their roles increase as well.
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