Texas WR Xavier Worthy ranked as a top returning receiver in the country

After having the best freshman season of any wide receiver in the entire country, rising sophomore Texas football star wideout Xavier Worthy enters 2022 on a high note. Worthy was the most potent and consistent weapon at the skill positions on a consistent basis for Texas last fall. While that was largely thanks to the season-ending injury that star sophomore running back Bijan Robinson suffered in November, it still goes to show how special Worthy was last fall.

The hype is really starting to build around Worthy well ahead of the start of the 2022 season too. Worthy is already getting hyped up as one of the very best wideouts in the country among any returning player in 2022. But that doesn’t come as much of a surprise, though, given how good he was during his true freshman campaign.

In a piece from 247Sports this week listing the 10 best returning wide receivers in college football in 2022, Worthy fell in line in the top three. The only two wide receivers that rang in above Worthy on this list from 247Sports were the rising junior Pitt Panthers star Jordan Addison and emerging Ohio State Buckeyes superstar/rising junior Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Texas football listed by 247Sports to have a top 3 WR in the country in 2022 with Xavier Worthy

Here’s more on what this piece from 247 had to say about the placement of Worthy among the best wideouts for 2022 on this list.

"As a freshman, Worthy went off in what was a down year for the Longhorns. He’s only going to get better. Now that Quinn Ewers is expected to be under center for Texas, Worthy might be an absolute monster. He easily could be in the running for the top receiver spot in the country. It’s amazing he still has to play another season after 2022 before going to the NFL."

Worthy deserves a lot of the hype he’s getting this offseason. He had a truly tremendous 2021 campaign where he registered nearly 1,000 receiving yards (roughly 16 yards per catch) and a dozen receding touchdowns.

There could be even more room for Worthy to go to work in 2022, though. The addition of the former Wyoming Cowboys breakout redshirt freshman wide receiver Isaiah Neyor should take some of the attention from opposing defenses off Worthy.

And Worthy should now have a quarterback that can get the ball to him accurately on a more consistent basis with the addition of the former Ohio State freshman signal-caller Quinn Ewers.

Texas finished up last season with a record of 5-7 (3-6 Big 12) following their Black Friday win in the regular season finale over the Kansas State Wildcats. That saw head coach Steve Sarkisian miss the postseason for the Longhorns for the first time since 2016.