Texas Football: 3 injuries to watch for Longhorns ahead of spring camp

Possibly the thinnest position for the Texas football program heading into spring camp is linebacker. Texas is very fortunate that they’re getting the former JUCO transfer inside linebacker and to-be junior Juwan Mitchell back so soon after he intended to put his name in the NCAA Transfer Portal earlier in the offseason.

If not for getting Mitchell back heading into spring ball, then the Longhorns would be looking at a linebacking corps that is their thinnest position group on either side of the ball. Texas is set to miss to-be sophomore linebacker and former four-star recruit Ayodele Adeoye thanks to a foot injury that he needed surgery to fix.

Adeoye rounded out his redshirt freshman season with 45 total tackles, three tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks, one interception, and two pass deflections. His best individual outings came in two losses and a win. He had five total tackles and one sack in the loss to the Baylor Bears and three total tackles and one interception in the road win over the West Virginia Mountaineers.

The ceiling is very high for Adeoye in his second full season starting with the Longhorns. But he’ll need another big breakthrough and to stay healthy through fall camp. Instilling a new scheme completely thanks to the hire of defensive coordinator Chris Ash to replace the departed Todd Orlando could be tough on any player like Adeoye that misses significant practice time this offseason.