Injuries are piling up in the early stages of the 2024 UNC football season.
Kaimon Rucker, a graduate edge rusher, has been sidelined with a lower body injury, UNC football said in the press box about 30 minutes before the team’s home opener versus Charlotte in Kenan Stadium on Saturday afternoon. He’ll have a treatment and is expected to be off “for a couple of weeks.”
Rucker had four tackles and one sack in the Tar Heels’ season-opening 19-16 road victory over Minnesota.
As a junior, the 6-foot-2, 265-pound standout started all 13 games for a 2023 UNC football team that finished 8-5.
He was named to the All-ACC Second Team after recording 61 tackles, 8.5 sacks, 15 tackles for loss, 12 quarterback pressures, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery, and a pass breakup.
In addition to Kaimon Rucker and graduate quarterback Max Johnson, who was the team’s first-string signal caller before suffering a season-ending broken leg in a Week 1 victory over the Golden Gophers, Mack Brown’s Tar Heels will be without second-string graduate running back Darwin Barlow (lower body) and sophomore edge rusher Malaki Hamrick (illness) against the 49ers.
Rucker could be back on the field in time for UNC football’s rivalry game against Duke on September 28.
Next Saturday, the Tar Heels will host NC Central at 6 p.m. ET.
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