Texas Football: Xavier Worthy is ‘totally engaged’ early this offseason

The start of spring ball is just a few weeks away now for head coach Steve Sarkisian and Texas football. The wait won’t be much longer before we get to hear about some actual football news and nuggets taking place on the practice field for Texas.

One of the Longhorns players that we’re sure to be discussing plenty throughout spring ball is rising junior wide receiver Xavier Worthy. The two-time All-Big 12 selection and Freshman All-American will have high expectations heading into the 2023 campaign.

The 2023 season must be something of a rebound campaign for Worthy after his production declined during his sophomore campaign. Worthy’s effectiveness as a deep-ball threat essentially fell off a cliff last season. And he started to have some drop issues that weren’t there when he was a true freshman.

We need to hear about Worthy being locked in and showing more consistency in terms of his connection in the passing game with redshirt sophomore quarterback Quinn Ewers. Granted, it does appear that Worthy is on the right track coming out of the winter conditioning program.

A report from Horns247 on Feb. 20 (paid content) relays from a team source that Worthy is “totally engaged” in workouts and in the film room early this offseason. This report also emphasizes how Worthy is feeling the importance of the 2023 season being a “contract year” for him.

Worthy needs to show out in 2023 if he wants to solidify his stock as a solid wide receiver prospect in a future NFL Draft (likely either 2024 or 2025).

Texas football WR Xavier Worthy getting down to work in the midst of a critical offseason for him

He’ll be a critical part of a receiving corps that features a ton of talent with guys like the former Georgia Bulldogs sophomore wideout AD Mitchell, redshirt junior Isaiah Neyor, redshirt senior Jordan Whittington, etc.

And the fact that Texas will likely have four or five other guys all capable of vying for starting reps this fall, Worthy is going to have a lot more competition pushing him from all sides in camp.

A good start to the offseason for Worthy will be resetting his mindset and really getting down to work to find that spark he had as a dynamic weapon in space and in the deep ball as he was in 2021. We also shouldn’t forget that Worthy was still a dynamic target for much of the 2022 season in the passing game for Texas on short and intermediate targets.

Despite the decline in production for Worthy last season, he was still a pretty potent threat on multiple levels in the passing game for Texas.

Worthy was one of just four wide receivers in the Big 12 last season to register at least 125 receiving yards at all four levels of the field (behind the line of scrimmage, short, intermediate, and deep).

A successful offseason for Worthy in camp and in workouts could be the start of a resurgent year in which he re-establishes himself as one of the very best and most explosive receivers in the Power Five, not just the Big 12.