Between cutting down trees in his grandfather’s backyard and practicing shotgun snaps with his little brother, Jay Guillermo rediscovered himself.
Life was getting in the way of school and football. Something had to give.
In mid-February, Guillermo approached Dabo Swinney with a request to return home for a leave of absence. Swinney consented, allowing Guillermo to hit the pause button on his Clemson career.
“It was a culmination of a lot of different things that hit at once,” Guillermo told reporters on Monday, during his first media appearance of the year.
On top of last season’s foot injury, Guillermo was dealing with a litany of personal battles, many no different than what any normal 20-year-old might go through while away from home at college.