Texas Football: 3 pleasant surprises from first half of the season

Xavier Worthy, WR

It’s hard to pin any of the inconsistencies as faults to the former Michigan Wolverines four-star wide receiver commit and true freshman breakout stud Xavier Worthy of late. In the loss to Oklahoma two weekends ago, Worthy was insanely good. He registered more than 260 receiving yards and two touchdown catches in the loss to Oklahoma in Red River.

And in the loss to Oklahoma State last weekend, the Longhorns couldn’t get much of anything going in the passing game. An experienced Oklahoma State secondary limited what Texas could do through the air. And the Oklahoma State pass rush got to redshirt junior quarterback Casey Thompson, especially late in the game.

That led to Thompson not being able to get the ball to Worthy with any sort of effectiveness.

Nonetheless, Worthy still has an impressive stat line that he racked up through the first half of the season. A future star for the Longhorns, Worthy registered a team-leading 559 receiving yards on 30 catches (good for 18.6 yards per catch), and six touchdown catches. Worthy also has a team-leading 271 yards after the catch and 2.88 yards per route run.

There’s a lot of areas of Worthy’s game where he’s showing a lot of maturity early on. He’s only got two drops on the season, which came in the win over the TCU Horned Frogs a few weeks ago. And he’s come down with two of the four contested balls thrown his way. One of those was the clutch touchdown catch that tied the game late against Oklahoma.

Freshman mistakes are going to happen to Worthy. It’s a fact of life with a true freshman wide receiver leading the way through the air with a new coaching staff in place. But you can’t help but be impressed about what Worthy produced for the Longhorns through the first half.