Steve Sarkisian is liking what he sees from Texas’ health in camp, even if he’s not quite ready to trust it without a little superstition.
“Knock on wood.”
That was the first thing that came to mind for the Longhorns coach on Monday as he talked through the state of his roster during media availability. After nearly two weeks of preseason work, Sarkisian said the physical toll has been real, but the group has largely held together.
“I feel good, and for as physical as this camp has been, I think that’s encouraging,” Sarkisian said.
Texas has had a couple of minor issues, though the biggest one came during Saturday’s first scrimmage. A flu outbreak hit the team and kept wide receiver Daylan McCutcheon, defensive lineman Justus Terry, edge/linebacker Brad Spence, linebacker Rasheem Biles, linebacker Ty’Anthony Smith, and cornerback John Meredith out.
By Monday, things were trending in a better direction. Sarkisian said Terry, Spence, Smith, and Meredith were back at practice, while Biles was still out, to his recollection.
There was also an injury setback in the trenches. Sixth-year left guard Laurence Seymore, who had been working with the first team, suffered what Sarkisian called an “injury hiccup” 11 plays into the scrimmage.
That pushed sophomore Dylan Sikorski into a longer stretch of action. Sarkisian said the issue is not “long term,” and Seymore’s experience - more than 1,300 college snaps across three previous schools - means the value here is less about development and more about building chemistry.
Those kinds of injuries are often part of camp life up front, and Seymore had already nearly been rolled up on in practice last week. Still, Sarkisian said Texas deserves credit for the way it’s practicing and the way the staff is teaching contact.
“They’re really learning how to practice. Even when we’re going live - I see Coach [Will] Muschamp and Coach [Blake] Gideon - we’re not cut tackling right now.
We’re really trying to fit people up and tackle that way in a physical nature. When you can do that, yes, we’re going to the ground, but you’re minimizing the amount of people on the ground and falling onto the ground, and so it’s a credit to the players and how we’re working and how we’re practicing,” Sarkisian said.
That approach showed up in a tackle of freshman running back Derrek Cooper by senior cornerback Bo Mascoe that made the rounds on social media. During the scrimmage, redshirt sophomore Wardell Mack turned in a similar form tackle on junior wide receiver Emmett Mosley.
The reason Sarkisian is being careful with the good vibes is obvious. Texas has been burned by camp injuries before, and badly.
Last year, Andre Cojoe’s season-ending knee injury settled the right tackle battle in early August. In 2024, the Longhorns had to add Velton Gardner from the NCAA transfer portal after season-ending injuries to CJ Baxter and Christian Clark by the middle of preseason camp.
Four years ago, non-contact injuries to starter Junior Angilau and transfer wide receiver Isaiah Neyor hit Texas hard in the first scrimmage. And in 2019, a wave of running back injuries forced Roschon Johnson to move from quarterback and David Gbenda to move from linebacker.
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