Texas Football: On3 ranks Xavier Worthy as the No. 2 WR in 2023

It is the time of year when list season takes over the college football media landscape, and there will be plenty of Texas football players involved in these discussions heading into the spring. One returning Texas starter that is getting a lot of recognition early this offseason on many different lists ahead of the 2023 season is rising junior wide receiver Xavier Worthy.

The third-year wideout and former Freshman All-American Worthy will be looking for a bounce-back campaign in 2023 after his production declined year-over-year last fall.

Worthy was expected to be one of the best wide receivers in college football last season. He was supposed to be a serious deep-ball threat that could take advantage of any space he was given by opposing defenses in the passing and screen games, as well as on jet sweeps.

Basically, any way that head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns could get the ball in Worthy’s hands was considered to be detrimental to opposing defenses.

However, Worthy didn’t live up to the hype as a deep ball threat last season. And he experienced more issues with drops in 2022 than he did during his true freshman campaign. Worthy just wasn’t the threat in the passing game last fall that he was in 2021.

Texas football’s Xavier Worthy receives lofty placement in On3’s 2023 receiver rankings

Yet, Worthy’s decline in productivity and overall efficiency last season didn’t keep On3 from ranking him among the best wide receivers in all of college football in 2023. On3’s list of the top 10 best wide receivers in college football ahead of the 2023 season pegged Worthy as the second-best player at the position, only behind star Ohio State Buckeyes junior Marvin Harrison Jr.

Here’s what this On3 ranking had to say about Worthy’s placement as the second-best receiver in college football in 2023.

"The Longhorns star didn’t quite match his 2021 productivity, though some of that is almost certainly attributable to the injuries Texas had at quarterback. Still, Worthy is one of those receivers who seems to haul in anything thrown his direction. He finished 2022 with 60 catches for 760 yards and nine touchdowns."

While I do love to see Worthy’s talent and potential getting this type of national recognition from the media, it is also probably going to set a lot of college football fans outside of the Texas space off.

On3 is really banking on Worthy returning to the form that he showed as a Freshman All-American this year. He was ranked ahead of five 1,000-yard receivers last season. And all but one of the wideouts ranked below Worthy on the list had more receiving yards than him in 2022.

The only one that had fewer receiving yards last season that was ranked below Worthy on the list is Ainias Smith of the Texas A&M Aggies. And Smith only played four games last year before he suffered a season-ending lower-body injury.

Nonetheless, if Worthy is able to return to form in 2023, he will definitely be one of the most explosive and productive wideouts in college football. If he is on, Worthy can be a threat at multiple levels of the field, including behind the line of scrimmage. Just get Worthy in space and let him do the rest.

Worthy will be a part of one of the most talented wide receiver rooms in college football in 2023. Texas has three or four legit All-American candidates at wideout in 2023, highlighted by Worthy, junior Georgia transfer AD Mitchell, and redshirt junior Isaiah Neyor (assuming he makes a full recovery from the knee injury he suffered in fall camp last year).