Ahead of the first SEC-mandated injury report on Wednesday evening for Saturday’s matchup between the No. 20 Texas Longhorns against the No. 9 Vanderbilt Commodores at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium,
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian provided updates on redshirt sophomore quarterback Arch Manning and redshirt senior safety Michael Taaffe on the SEC Weekly Media Teleconference.
Sarkisian revealed that Taaffe has practiced the last two days after undergoing surgery for a broken thumb early last week. The team leader missed the overtime win over Mississippi State during which the Texas defense gave up 38 points, 445 total yards, and 382 passing yards without Taaffe in the lineup.
“When you don’t have a player of Michael’s caliber, you’re going to miss it — you’re going to miss the communication, you’re going to miss the playmaking ability, you’re going to mix his ability to fix issues in real time as they’re happening on the field, and not have to wait to get to the bench to fix it. So when you don’t have a player of his caliber, you’re going to miss him to some degree,” Sarkisian said.
The Longhorns did recover well enough offensively to hold the Bulldogs to seven points in the fourth quarter and scoreless in overtime, forcing three punts and a turnover on downs on the final four possessions for Mississippi State.
Manning also practiced on Wednesday, according to Sarkisian, although the Texas starter remains in concussion protocol after suffering a concussion scrambling for 13 yards on the first play of overtime.
Before leaving the win over the Bulldogs, Manning set a career high with 346 passing yards while throwing three touchdowns on 29-of-46 passing (63 percent), helping to engineer the comeback from two 17-point deficits with a gritty performance.
“He’s a warrior — he stood in there, he competed like he always does, and there were a couple protection breakdowns for sure in the game, which we need to clean up, but there were a couple others where he knew he was going to get hit, and he stood in the pocket and delivered a ball and delivered an accurate ball. So that was all very positive,” Sarkisian said on Monday.
But with Manning remaining in concussion protocol despite his availability for practice, it’s likely that he will be listed as doubtful or questionable on the initial injury report, continuing to set up the potential for redshirt senior backup Matthew Caldwell to make his first start for the Horns.
