Championships aren’t won in fall camp, but they can be lost. Camp is a critical time to ramp up for the upcoming season. It is when new players acclimate, veterans grab needed reps and depth chart battles are won.
It’s also when injuries pile up.
That’s what’s happening in Austin, Texas at running back. Expected starter CJ Baxter, a five-star prospect coming off 659 yards last year as a true freshman, went down last week with a season-ending knee injury. Then on Monday the Longhorns lost another expected contributor when true freshman Christian Clark suffered a season-ending Achilles tear.
Just like that, Texas is down to three scholarship running backs. Nobody’s going to cry for Texas, the preseason No. 4 team who just spit out the top running back selected in the 2023 and 2024 NFL drafts in Bijan Robinson and Jonathon Brooks, respectively. Running backs grow like trees on the 40 Acres, though that fact doesn’t make this week any less devastating.
There are ways around those losses. The Longhorns are working redshirt freshman linebacker Derion Gullette (6-foot-3, 235 pounds) in the backfield behind the scholarship trio of junior Jaydon Blue, sophomore Tre Wisner and freshman Jerrick Gibson. Longhorn fans know well that converting players into running backs — Roschon Johnson, anyone? — can be done with great success.
But losing Baxter (RB1) and Clark (expected RB5) are still massive blows in the context of Texas gunning for a national championship in its SEC debut.
Running back depth is critical to survive the week-to-week rock fight that is SEC football. Pull the lens out wider, when a potential national champion will have to play 17 games in the debut of the 12-team College Football Playoff, and expecting three running backs to survive for so long is a huge ask. Every instance Blue, Wisner or Gibson gets up gingerly will result in anxiety.
Consider this: Of the 10 national champions of the CFP era, eight of them had at least three ball carriers eclipse the 200-yard barrier. The only teams that didn’t were Alabama in 2015, when Heisman winner Derrick Henry carried the ball a staggering 395 times, and 2019 LSU, when Joe Burrow shattered SEC passing records.
Texas fans don’t even really need to be reminded about the importance of quality depth at running back. They saw it last year.
Brooks seemed well on the way to winning the Doak Walker Award before tearing his ACL in Week 10. But Texas managed to win the Big 12 — and nearly make it to the national title game — without him because Baxter, Blue and the gadgety Keilan Robinson and Savion Red helped Texas average 203 rushing yards per game and 5.5 yards per carry down the stretch.
Can Texas’ 2024 options have the same sort of post-injury impact? It’s possible. There isn’t a lack of talent.
Blue, the No. 6 running back in the 2022 class, said earlier this offseason he’s in a “contract year.” He’ll get the chance to prove his value as the Longhorns’ starter after popping off for 398 yards on 65 carries in 2023 (a clip of 6.1 yards per carry, with 10 carries of 10-plus yards). Wisner was overshadowed by Baxter in the 2023 class, but those around the Longhorn program have spoken very highly of him this offseason. Now, he’ll be a featured piece. Gibson? He ranked as the No. 3 overall back in the 2024 class coming out of IMG Academy and figured to push for playing time in Year 1.
It’s an intriguing group. It’s also a thin one that, through the rhythms of the season, will only get thinner.
Texas might be fine. Michigan had no issues last season using mainly two backs on the way to a national title, though it helped that pair were proven stars Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards. Quinn Ewers and the Longhorn passing attack could also carry the team like Burrow did for LSU a few years back. Ewers and one of the most talented receiving corps in the country are capable of doing so. It also helps that Texas’ o-line is expected to be among the best in the country.
A season ago, the injury to Brooks aside, Texas had excellent health luck en route to the program’s first Big 12 title since 2009. That has not been the case so far for a 2024 campaign that has not even started yet — and when it does it will include a more difficult schedule, stouter defenses and potentially more games in an expanded playoff. You figure Texas’ lack of running back depth is going to catch up to it at some point, unfortunately.
