T.J. McDaniel led the Mustangs with 60 carries and was second with 297 rushing yards when his 2020 season was cut short in the fourth game (photo by Max Franklin).

To say the 2020 season didn’t go as planned for SMU running back T.J. McDaniel would be, to say the least, a gross understatement. He emerged from preseason camp as the Mustangs’ starter and was expected to team with Ulysses Bentley to give the Ponies a potent one-two punch out of the backfield.

That all changed in the fourth game of the season. On his first carry against Memphis, McDaniel took a handoff and headed to his left. The Tigers’ defense swarmed McDaniel, who disappeared under a pile of players. Memphis defensive end Joseph Dorceus (who has since transferred to Tulane) fell across McDaniel’s leg, shattering his left fibula and dislocating his ankle.

His season was over.

“I was going through the hole, and at the last second, I saw (Dorceus),” McDaniel said. “He threw his whole body at the lower part of leg, and honestly I’m surprised he didn’t snap my entire leg. He goes about 5-10, 300. I knew right away (it was serious).

“When it happened, I had no clue what was wrong, until I turned over on the ground and looked down … and it was turned the wrong way.”

While trainers rushed on to the field at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, McDaniel then took his injury into his own hands — literally.

“I just went for it — I turned it back in place,” he said. “I thought, ‘man, this isn’t right. Maybe I can relieve some pressure. If it works … great.’ I just went for it, convinced I could help it somehow.

“I’ve never dealt with an injury like this. I’ve never really even seen anything like this. I knew one guy who had a similar injury — his was a full 90 degrees in the wrong direction, mine was about 75. He’s back on the field, but recovery was long.”

McDaniel said he knew immediately that his injury, obviously, was season-ending. While frustrated to not be on the field with his teammates, he had plenty of time to consider the recovery process that awaited him. The process he chose, however, was anything but typical.

“I skipped out on surgery,” he said. “I didn’t do it. I’m not a huge fan of surgery. I’m a running back, and I need mobility in my ankle. If I get a plate and seven screws in there, or whatever it would be, I would not have nearly the mobility I had before.”

When bypassing the surgeon’s table, McDaniel turned to a familiar resource: his brother, Cam. After a brief Canadian Football League career in which he played a year each with the Toronto Argonauts and the Montreal Alouettes, Cam returned to north Texas and now is CEO and co-founder of Atom Technologies in Fort Worth.

“My brother had a machine he worked with in Canada called the Atom,” TJ McDaniel said. “It’s comparable to Arpwave (using electric current to speed healing from various injuries). It uses direct current — sort of the opposite of a stim(ulator) unit. It works with alternating current. When you put these pads on, you can feel it surging, and it has shown some pretty amazing results.

“I actually used this same kind of technology during my sophomore year of high school, when I sprained my MCL. I was back in two weeks.”

McDaniel said SMU head coach Sonny Dykes and the SMU training staff gave the go-ahead to pursue the alternate treatment … and that the results have been as positive as he hoped.

“I’m really the first athlete ever to do this, to skip out on that kind of surgery. The doctors reviewed my last MRI, and said the healing is nothing but a miracle.”

McDaniel has been rehabbing vigorously — lifting weights, walking and running on the beach and hiking.

The decision to bypass surgery in order to work with his brother’s Atom technology was not as difficult as it might seem, McDaniel said.

If T.J. McDaniel makes it back on the field in 2021, he will rejoin a more crowded running backs room that includes two transfers and a trio of incoming freshmen (photo by Max Franklin).

“I trust my brother, and told him, ‘if you believe it can heal me, I’m all for it,’” he said. “I may not be coming back as fast as I would have if I’d had surgery, but in the end, I really believe it will be better in the long run, because I’m going to have that mobility in the ankle that I need to play at a high level.

“The doctors said there was a risk that those bones might never heal back right, but since then the bones have healed perfectly. They said everything I didn’t want to hear, that there was a chance I would never play football again, but that was a chance I was willing to take just to not put any metal in my foot. I knew what I was stepping in to, the chance I was taking. When it came down to it, I was something of a guinea pig. I took a chance, and I’m glad I trusted my brother and his partner, because I have gotten amazing results.”

When he first started the Atom treatment, McDaniel was on it virtually all the time. “It was in my bed, and it was virtually all I could do. The doctors created a cast, custom-fit to my foot. I had pads and leads coming out of the cast, and was able to hook it up to the machine from under the cast. So while I was in bed, while I was in a chair … I always had it on.”

Considering the severe nature of his injury, McDaniel’s progress in his recovery was swift. He was injured Oct. 3, and was walking — “nothing crazy … just around the house” — Nov. 4.

“I had a couple of doctors tell me the best thing I did was walking when I did, because it got blood to that area,” McDaniel said, “and that starts to work the ligaments in that area. If I had just immobilized the ankle, think how stiff it would have been after two months, three months. I wanted to walk, to get some motion in that area. It’s still somewhat restricted now, but I’m getting more and more range of motion to the ankle.”

McDaniel has spent much of the summer training in southern California with his trainer in Orange County.

“I’m super-thankful to have a coach like Coach Dykes,” McDaniel said. “He could easily make it out like I’m on some kind of a vacation, but he knows my work ethic.”

He said he feels no more pain. Now, McDaniel said, the goals include getting more and more motion in the ankle, and being “able to absorb 1,000 pounds of force” when the defense swarms to the ball.

Dykes said during the Mustangs’ spring workouts that McDaniel and wide receiver Reggie Roberson would be cleared in July to resume football activities. McDaniel said he is doing everything he can to prove his coach right, but acknowledged that the treatment he chose leaves some question about his return.

“There’s a chance,” he said. “We’re just going to continue to see how it goes. Nobody has ever done what I’m doing with this recovery, so I don’t have a timeline. I’m doing what I can, and it all depends on how my body reacts.”

Not surprisingly, McDaniel clearly is eager to return to the field with his team.

“It was horrible,” he said of watching his teammates play without him. “I wanted to be involved. When players have major injuries, they can get away from their teams. The only reason I came to train in California is because it is what was best for me, but my team needs me, and I need my team.

“Watching (while injured) … it was the first time I was in that situation, watching my teammates but knowing I couldn’t do anything. It stinks. Part of me would sit back and just … ‘wow — I miss this.’ Even watching pre-game made me miss everything about it. I got to (watch) the first couple of games of my freshman year, and I got sick of it. That’s part of why I was being so competitive on the scout team. I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to get on the field.’”

His perspective on the sideline did afford McDaniel a better appreciation of his teammates. A year ago, he and Bentley were the Ponies’ top two runners at the start of the season, and after he got hurt, Bentley shared the running back role with Tyler Lavine. Both will be back in 2021, as will transfers Orlando Jones and Tre Siggers, as well as incoming freshmen Montaye Dawson, Brandon Epton and Zane Minors.

“As much as I hated not being out there, I love seeing my teammates succeed,” McDaniel said. Tyler and Ulysses proved to everyone how good they are. Now I have to come back and prove that I can be that guy. I started to make a name for myself — now I have to regain that name.

“The coaches don’t know how I’ll come back. Nobody does. But I’m a competitor, and I’ll do everything I can to prove I’m back, and even better.”

Exactly when that will happen remains to be seen.

“There’s no blueprint for this, so I really have no clue,” he said. “I expect to be back this season — that’s what I want, and that’s what the coaches want. I don’t want to be in this same position next year. I want to cut the way I used to, I want to run the way I used to.

“Like I said, this is the first time anyone has ever done this, so if I can’t come back (this) season, I’m not going to rush it. I want to come back at 100 percent of the running back I know I can be.”

T.J. McDaniel started the first four games of the 2020 season before suffering his season-ending injury (photo by Max Franklin).