Khalil Jacobs was able to count on one hand the ways he knew he had recovered from a torn pectoral muscle.

We mean that quite literally.

The Missouri football linebacker’s 2024 campaign ended in Amherst, Massachusetts, and he remembers the moment well. UMass quarterback Taisun Phommachanh peeled out of the pocket, and Jacobs was tracking his movement.

Jacobs went in for a gator-roll tackle — an aptly named tackling technique where the defender squeezes their arms around the offensive player’s legs and rolls over to bring them down, mimicking an alligator grabbing and disorienting its prey in water. But Jacobs didn’t quite finish the move. Instead, he landed on his front and felt a pop.

Adrenaline didn’t allow Jacobs to fully appreciate the gravity of what had just happened. In the m

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