Texas Football: Impact of Keaontay Ingram opting out, and leaving

What does it mean for head coach Tom Herman and the Texas football that junior running back Keaontay Ingram could be done on the Forty Acres?

Some of the more peculiar news to arrive for the Texas football program in a while looks to have come about on Dec. 3. Junior running back and former four-star recruit Keaontay Ingram could be done for the 2020 season, and then might look to transfer heading into next offseason. Multiple sources (including Horns247) reported the opting out and potential transfer of Ingram ahead of this weekend’s matchup on the road against the Kansas State Wildcats.

Ingram had missed the last couple of games due to a lower-body injury. An ankle injury is mostly what ailed him so far this season. He was likely to be out this weekend against Kansas State either way. But this is still detrimental news to the depth of the Longhorns backfield for the future.

There was some level of expectation that Ingram could declare early for the 2021 NFL Draft, following this season, but he didn’t show enough on the field likely to put enough into his stock come next spring. That might be why he’s looking to transfer following his junior campaign now cut short at Texas.

What Texas is losing out of Ingram is a mostly efficient running back that did make some mistakes this year. In bits and pieces of six games played this season, Ingram registered 250 rushing yards (4.7 yards per carry), one rushing touchdown, 103 receiving yards (9.4 yards per catch), and one touchdown catch.

For his career in three years playing for Texas, Ingram registered 1,811 rushing yards (5.3 yards per carry), 11 rushing touchdowns, 515 receiving yards (7.7 yards per catch), and six touchdown catches. Throughout the first two and a half years or so of his college career, Ingram was improving as a pass catcher out of the backfield. But that progressed slowed as this season moved along.

Ingram did also start to get some fumbling troubles at key times this season. At one point he had two fumbles on three consecutive rushing attempts, stemming between the beginning of Red River and the end of the loss to the TCU Horned Frogs. He was also penalized a couple of times this season, posted less than three yards after contact per attempt for the first time in his career this year, and had more common mistakes in pass blocking.

This wasn’t the best season for Ingram, likely due in part to the weird year and partly due to consistent injury problems. If his name does appear in the NCAA Transfer Portal, it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to find a good opportunity elsewhere.

Ingram is the second-leading rusher for the Longhorns this year, behind true freshman former five-star recruit Bijan Robinson. He does only have three more rushing yards on the season than sophomore Roschon Johnson.

Robinson and Johnson obviously will have to step up in his wake. But that won’t be much of a change compared to the last two games, since he missed those anyway with that aforementioned ankle injury. Moving forward, though, Texas will have to find answers elsewhere.

Three-star 2021 running back commit Jonathon Brooks might get tossed into the fire faster than originally anticipated. And the workload for Robinson is going to dramatically increased faster than Herman likely wanted down the stretch this season.

This is more abrupt news of opt outs for Herman and the Longhorns. With more and more pressure building on the head coach’s shoulders of late, Ingram now joins junior safety Caden Sterns, and redshirt junior offensive tackle Sam Cosmi as those who opted out for the rest of the season this week.