Texas Football: Panic meter surrounding De’Gabriel Floyd injury news

How much should the coaching staff and fan base panic for the Texas football program with yet another detrimental injury emerging?

The Texas football program didn’t get the best news pertaining to the first-year former four-star signee linebacker De’Gabriel Floyd after he was initially expected to just miss spring ball. Floyd was in place to try and return for the fall for the Texas football program, which would be big for the depth at linebacker this year.

However, reports emerged on April 6 that Floyd was set to miss the entirety of the 2019 campaign due to a spinal stenosis diagnosis that stemmed from his football career at Westlake High School. Floyd is a native of Westlake Village, CA, and apparently didn’t get the diagnosis and treatment required to take care of this lingering injury during high school.

Now, Texas football has to deal with the ramifications of a player that could have his career on the line. Floyd is now set to miss all of what would be his true freshman campaign. Looking beyond the 2019 season, Floyd will have to take a long recovery period just to get back in the shape necessary to compete again at the Power Five level.

This off-season, Floyd had to be hoping to come on the Forty Acres as an early enrollee and contend immediately for a starting role. If nothing else, he showed the skill set and maturity at Westlake required to make valuable early contributions in the linebacker rotation for head Texas football coach Tom Herman and defensive coordinator Todd Orlando.

His absence in the linebacking corps isn’t an immediate reason to panic, but he was the highest rated signee at the position for the Longhorns 2019 recruiting class. Floyd was also one of the more highly touted early enrollees through that signing class.

Moreover, the full details of this lingering injury are still coming through. What we do know is that this condition to the spine of Floyd didn’t improve much since he came onto the Forty Acres as an early enrollee two months back.

Of late, Floyd went through a full bone scan and MRI to try and source the issue. But, nothing has emerged yet as to how he can recover from this troubling diagnosis. That report from the Dallas Morning News also highlighted that Floyd would be re-evaluated next January.

There isn’t much to follow here outside of hoping that Floyd can recover and get back to full health in due time. He is one of two 2019 Texas signees that could miss the entirety of the 2019 campaign due to health problems before spring camp even began.

For the time being, Texas football will have to move forward with redshirt freshman Ayodele Adeoye as the starting linebacker in the spot for where Floyd was likely going to compete for playing time against him. Adeoye is a very talented young linebacker too, but he had some injury issues of his own in fall camp last year.

However, in terms of gauging the panic meter for the Texas Longhorns football program here, most relies on the health of the rest of the defense. The injury report piled up way too fast for the fans and coaching staff to be comfortable. But, since we already knew this was a possibility for Floyd to miss the entire season, it’s not worth panicking completely.