Walking out of the huddle, the moment was getting the better of Jacob Dunning. It shouldn’t, but strange things happen when it’s been a year since you played a snap.
No one was around last Monday at practice, save his ISU teammates and coaches, but the nerves were the same for his first game, at Kansas State in 2013.
And Dunning loved it.
He didn’t know if this moment would come. It sure beat the feelings of loneliness, isolation and despair that occasionally accompanied his grueling year-long return from a ruptured patellar tendon.
“I appreciate the sport a lot more,” Dunning said.