Texas Football: Impact Al’Vonte Woodard injury brings Longhorns

Texas football lost a key piece deeper down the wide receiver depth chart for a long time this off-season with redshirt freshman Al’Vonte Woodard.

It’s not like the worst happening possible kicked in for the Texas football program at the outset of summer workouts, but this is an unfortunate time for this team to lose anyone. Namely, Texas football can ill afford to lose much more talent either in the secondary or at the skill positions.

What Texas football lost this time around in summer workouts is the former four-star 2018 signee and redshirt freshman Al’Vonte Woodard. Woodard was set to compete for playing time in the receiving alongside a host of second-year skill position players including Joshua Moore and Brennan Eagles.

According to Taylor Estes of Horns247, Woodard is set to miss multiple months with a broken foot injury he suffered in player led 7-on-7 practice during summer workouts. This is a very difficult time to lose players that were expected to contribute this fall. Texas also had a rough time keeping players on the defensive side of the ball healthy during spring camp.

That report also indicates that Woodard isn’t likely to be back in the lineup for head Texas football coach Tom Herman in the season opener against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs on Aug. 31. That means that other young Texas wide receivers will have the chance to possibly step up in his place.

If Woodard winds up missing both the non-conference showdowns against Group of Five opponents with the Rice Owls and Louisiana Tech, there could be extra early playing time dished out to other young talent. But Woodard at least is seemingly going with a positive outlook on social media.

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Woodard already took a redshirt year since he didn’t play in more than four games during his first year on the Forty Acres. This 6-foot-1 and 205 pound standout wide receiver will have an uphill battle in front of him if he even wants to play in four games this coming season.

The Texas Longhorns football program lost a lot of depth in the receiving corps in the last six months, since the start of the off-season. First and foremost, would-be rising senior wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey declared early for the 2019 NFL Draft. Then, former five-star wide receiver transfer signee Bru McCoy went back to the USC Trojans and Jordan Whittington was moved to running back.

In terms of how this will impact Woodard himself, potentially missing out on early playing time, the rest of summer workouts, and fall camp makes it tough to take significant strides during his second year on campus. He didn’t get much of any game exposure as a true freshman, so this was set to be a big year for him.

All in all, this could still be a year where Woodard shows flashes on the gridiron. But he’ll have to work this much harder to firmly slot himself high up in the wide receiver depth chart for the Longhorns.