Texas Football: 3 players who must step up after Whittington injury

Following the season opening win over UTEP, Texas football is down yet another wide receiver, with a knee injury to redshirt freshman Jordan Whittington.

The season opener for the Texas football program had to have gone better than planned for head coach Tom Herman, in a dominant 59-3 win last weekend over the UTEP Miners. Texas got the best of UTEP in their Week 1 showdown, and lone non-conference game of the 2020 regular season, at home at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium under the lights on Sep. 12 when they entered the game as 44-point favorites.

Although the season opening win over the Miners last weekend brought about a lot of bright spots for the Longhorns, not all that came out of that game was positive. Texas did get another key injury at the wide receiver position, as redshirt freshman and former five-star recruit Jordan Whittington came up limping after a play late in the first half.

Whittington wound up with a “small tear” in his meniscus, which requires surgery to repair and start the rehab process, in the first half of that win over UTEP. It looks like there will be a three or four week recovery timeline for Whittington to get back on the active roster for Herman and the Longhorns.

That does mean that Whittington is likely to miss the Longhorns Big 12 opener on the road on Sep. 26 in Lubbock against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. He might be able to get back in time for the Big 12 home opener, on Oct. 3 against the TCU Horned Frogs. But his status for that game still remains unknown.

With Whittington set to recover from this lower-body injury over the next few weeks, who will have to step up in his absence for the Longhorns?