The opening stretch of the season is taking its toll on the Texas Longhorns after three players suffered injuries in Saturday’s in over the UTEP Miners and five other players missed the game.
During head coach Steve Sarkisian’s Monday press conference, he revealed that redshirt sophomore running back CJ Baxter will be held out of the final non-conference game against Sam Houston on Saturday after suffering a hamstring injury on the first play from scrimmage against UTEP.
“We don’t think it’s overly
significant, but he’ll be out this week, just from a precautionary standpoint, to hopefully get him ready for SEC play,” Sarkisian said.
Senior center Cole Hutson and sophomore cornerback Kobe Black also left the win over the Miners with injuries and did not return.
“Will monitor those guys throughout the week. We’ll see, they’re questionable,” Sarkisian said.
The Longhorns were without redshirt freshman safety Xavier Filsaime on Saturday due to a shoulder injury. Sarkisian said that he’s questionable for Saturday.
In addition to Filsaime’s injury, junior running back Quintrevion Wisner, junior wide receiver DeAndre Moore Jr., sophomore wide receiver Emmett Mosley, and sophomore defensive tackle Alex January all sat out against the Miners.
“We’ll see what we look like health-wise by Saturday, but we’re gonna try to prep all our guys be ready to go come Saturday night, seven o’clock,” Sarkisian said.
Although Texas hasn’t suffered any long-term injuries this year beyond the season-ending knee injury sustained by redshirt sophomore right tackle Andre Cojoe early in preseason camp, the knocks are stacking up and having an impact on how well the team is performing offensively.
“I don’t make excuses at all, like, that is not what we do, but I think not having a couple of our veterans on offense consistently has affected kind of the flow of how we play, you lose Trey Weisner, you lose DeAndre Moore, then you lose Cedric Baxter. Those guys are the ones that have played some football for us,” Sarkisian said.
