The resiliency of Ja’Quinden Jackson

In the majority of games this season, there’s been a moment where Utah running back Ja’Quinden Jackson comes up limping.

He goes to the sideline, gets checked out, retaped if needed, and is back on the field a few plays later.

Utes on the air

Utah (7-4, 4-4 Pac-12)
vs. Colorado (4-7, 1-7 Pac-12)
Saturday, 1 p.m. MST
Rice-Eccles Stadium
TV: Pac-12 Network
Radio: ESPN 700/92.1 FM

Football is a brutal game, and once the pads come on in fall camp, very few get to the end of the season 100% healthy.

“One thing about this sport that we play called football, as soon as you report to training camp, you’re never healthy again until the end of the season. That’s just how it goes,” said running backs coach Quinton Ganther, who played two seasons at Utah in 2004 and 2005 and played six years in the NFL.

A nagging ankle injury first suffered in fall camp has been hampering Jackson throughout the season. Back in September after a win over UCLA, coach Kyle Whittingham elaborated on Jackson’s injury, saying it’s been a hinderance to him and saying there’s “no answer” except for extended rest.

“He’s a warrior and he keeps coming back, but it just keeps recurring. ... He’s been battling that for essentially the whole season and just trying to muster through it,” Whittingham said.

Whittingham has made it clear that the healthy and safety of players is always first and foremost.

“If he feels good to go and he’s ready, then we go. ... It’s completely dependent upon the safety of the player and where he is physically and how ready he is,” Whittingham said.

Related

• As Utes prepare for final regular-season game of Pac-12 era, a look back — and forward

• ‘I think we can do some special things’: Why Cam Rising returned to Utah

• Utah and Colorado limp into regular-season finale

With Utah eliminated from Pac-12 contention after a loss to Washington on Nov. 11, and with a laundry list of players out for the season, absolutely no one would have blamed Jackson if he decided to shut it down for the year.

But he keeps gutting it out, headlining a thin running back room that has felt the absence of Micah Bernard and Chris Curry, both of whom suffered season-ending injuries. Jackson has played in every game this season, except at Oregon State.

“We continue to fight with all the injuries that we had and stuff like that,” Jackson said Monday when asked what stood out about this season. “We could have quit and just been like, ‘Man, we don’t got this guy. We don’t got that guy, so we ain’t be able to accomplish that.’ But we didn’t. We kept going and we kept fighting, basically what Coach Whit says, ‘next man up mentality.’ So those guys just stepped up, did their part, and we got an OK record.”

The 2023 season didn’t turn out as magical as the last two for Utah. With at least eight key season-ending injuries, and others that kept a lot of players out for two games or more, Utah is 7-4 (4-4 Pac-12) heading into the regular-season finale against Colorado. An eight-win season, and a chance to make it a nine-win season in a bowl game, would still be a successful season, given the circumstances.

A transfer from the University of Texas — his hometown college — in 2021, Jackson was originally a blue-chip quarterback. But as Cam Rising — also a Longhorn transfer — assumed the starting quarterback role at Utah, Jackson transitioned to running back in 2022 amid a deluge of injuries to the running back position, similar to 2023.

After a 531-yard and nine-touchdown season on 78 carries in 2022, Jackson would assume the lead running back role with a full year of training as a running back under his belt.

It was supposed to be a particularly productive season for the 6-foot-2, 228-pound Jackson. Limited with his ankle injury, he’s run for 627 yards and four touchdowns on 122 carries, but if he was healthier, those numbers would be higher.

We’ve seen glimpses of what Jackson can do this season when he’s feeling good — 129 rushing yards at Baylor, 117 rushing yards against USC and 111 vs. Arizona State.

His season-long run came in the 55-3 win over the Sun Devils, when he slipped through Arizona State’s defense, shaking off an arm tackle, then was off to the races for a 54-yard touchdown. But in a cruel twist of fate, a Sun Devil defender tackled him into the end zone, landing on Jackson’s ankle.

Jackson has been a leader, both in the running backs room and for the team as a whole. He’s been a stalwart for Utah’s run game, taking the lion’s share of the carries.

Tight end Landen King, who has known Jackson since high school — they both played high school football in Texas — says that he is one of the team’s foremost leaders.

“Whatever we do, he’s always going to take upon it,” King said. “Don’t matter if we’re at the facility or at home, he’ll call you or something. So I mean, just having somebody like that on the team, like a big uncle, for real, that really loves you and cares about you, I mean, we all need that. And then he’s a really good player too, so that just adds on to it.”

Related

• Coach Whit and Coach Prime — a study in contrasts

What keeps Jackson coming back, day after day, practice after practice, game after game, to keep playing, even though he’s hurt?

Part of it is trying to be there for his teammates, but it goes deeper than that.

“It is not football at all. If it was just football, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.

He plays for his family, including his godson, and to honor the memories of friends and family members, including Utah teammates Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe, whom he memorialized with a tattoo of the “22 Forever” symbol.

He also has tattoos of some of his friends that have died, along with his grandfather.

“I have people back home that I got to think about, family. I got a godson ... just family man, family keep me going. All the people that I lost throughout the years, they keep me going. So those are the people that keep me going every day, every single day, even the days that I want to give up, they keep me going,” Jackson said.