Texas heads into Saturday with more than just a tricky road test against Missouri. The Longhorns are also staring at an injury report that keeps getting longer, and the timing could hardly be worse.
By Wednesday through Friday evenings, the Southeastern Conference’s latest availability list had Texas looking battered. It’s the most players the Longhorns have had on the report all season, and a lot of the names are the kind that change games right away.
The hit got even harder Thursday afternoon, when senior running back Hollywood Smothers was ruled out for the rest of the season with a torn MCL. He joins senior starting left tackle Trevor Goosby, freshman edge Richard Wesley and sophomore tight end Nick Townsend on the list of players already out for Texas’ matchup with Missouri.
There’s more uncertainty behind them. Junior edge rusher Colin Simmons, sophomore defensive backs Kade Phillips and Graceson Littleton, and junior wide receivers Ryan Wingo and Cam Coleman are all listed as questionable.
According to Horns247’s Eric Henry, sources have said that Wingo and Phillips are trending toward playing this Saturday, while Coleman and Simmons will likely be game-time decisions.
With four games left, Texas is suddenly trying to survive the stretch run while short-handed.
“More guys are going to have to step up this week,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said on Monday. “I don’t know what it’ll look like Saturday.
I don’t know exactly who will be out there playing for us. We obviously won’t be at full strength, but I have the utmost confidence (that) whoever’s out there will be ready to go.”
Sarkisian said the staff knew injuries would come, especially in a conference as punishing as the SEC. He also pointed out that Texas expected to be thin at running back at some point this season, which is part of why the roster was built with so much depth.
That depth is already being tested. Freshman Derrek Cooper and sophomore Michael Terry III have both stepped into larger roles, and each has scored his first career touchdown this season while filling in during Smothers’ injury stretch.
If Wingo and Coleman can’t go, Texas will lean more heavily on freshman Jermaine Bishop Jr. and junior Emmett Mosley V. Sarkisian also mentioned that freshmen wide receivers Kohen Brown and Chris Stewart, who have stood out on special teams, could soon get opportunities. Sophomore wide receiver Kaliq Lockett, he said, is on track to get healthy enough for more action.
“I think them gaining confidence on special teams is a way which we’ve seen with players in our past,” Sarkisian said. “They gain confidence on special teams, and then that kind of translates to offense and defensive football.”
Even with the younger players waiting for bigger chances, Texas can’t afford to treat this like a development week. The Longhorns’ record already put them in a must-win situation before the injuries piled up, and now the margin for error is even thinner.
That leaves the season hanging on how Texas handles the pressure and the attrition in front of it. The next few weeks could go one of two ways: the whole thing could come apart, or the Longhorns could find something stronger in the middle of the chaos.
“We take a lot of pride in the grit and toughness of this organization, and that’s what November is about,” Sarkisian said. “Nobody’s at 100%.
Nobody’s at full strength. But you got to find a way to win games in a gritty fashion.
And I think that’s what we’ve done historically. And that’s what this month is going to require.
And it starts this weekend in Columbia.”
In Other News...
Warren Roberson Picked The Perfect Time For His First Texas Start
Warren Roberson had been waiting for his first Texas start, and he made it count in a game the Longhorns needed to control from start to finish. In a 34-20 win over Missouri, the senior cornerback stepped into the lineup and delivered one of the biggest plays of the afternoon late in the game, helping Texas protect a lead that had still felt vulnerable.
Robersons forced fumble flipped the momentum at the right moment, and sophomore Graceson Littleton turned it into even more damage by returning the recovery 44 yards to set up the clinching touchdown. For a defense that needed a timely answer, the sequence was exactly the kind of complementary football Texas wanted, with a first-time starter helping close the door when it mattered most. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Gritted Out A Ranked Win But Two Problems Stood Out
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Still, the win did not clean up every concern. Texas had to work through too much pressure up front, and the offensive lines protection was a problem even in a game the Longhorns controlled for stretches. There was also plenty of frustration with the officiating, leaving the kind of lingering irritation that can follow a hard-fought conference win even when the scoreboard says the job got done. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Just Added Fuel To A Ranking Debate Fans Know Well
Week 10 turned the AP Top 25 into another reminder of how unsettled the national picture has been all season, with eight ranked teams falling and the poll getting a new No. 1 for the fifth time this year. Georgia climbed back to the top spot, while Ohio State and Ole Miss slid after losses, and Texas was among the teams to benefit from the reshuffling after a key victory of its own.
For Longhorns fans, the latest update only adds more fuel to a familiar debate about where Texas belongs when the dust settles around the sports weekly chaos. The rankings keep moving, and with Tennessee, Oregon and Alabama also moving up, the conversation around the top of the poll is getting tighter by the week, leaving Texas right in the middle of the national picture with plenty still to be decided. [Read more 🡒]