Texas Football: 4 players that shined in Friday’s spring scrimmage

CJ Baxter Jr., RB

We already talked about the former No. 1 rated running back recruit in the nation in the 2023 class and true freshman early enrollee CJ Baxter Jr. on the site today. Baxter reportedly had to leave practice on April 4 thanks to a quad issue.

But Baxter was able to make a full return to practice and then the scrimmage in the last couple of days. It sounds like the quad issue didn’t hold Baxter back one bit in the scrimmage on April 7, which isn’t very surprising given that he was already back in individual and team drills the day prior.

In the last few hours, we’ve heard nothing but positive feedback regarding Baxter’s performance in the third scrimmage of spring ball. Baxter reportedly had some good, physical runs between the tackles. He also did a nice job making some defenders miss in the open field, which is something we’re becoming accustomed to hearing about from the former five-star Florida RB recruit.

What’s really promising to hear about, though, from the scrimmage today was Baxter standing out as a receiver out of the backfield. We heard about Baxter motioning out wide at least a few times during the scrimmage and in team drills in the last couple of days to run routes as a receiver.

A scrimmage report from Eric Nahlin of Inside Texas on April 7 (paid content) mentioned Baxter more than any other running back among the standouts in the third scrimmage. That is becoming more and more of a trend in recent weeks that Baxter is generating the most buzz of any of the running backs in the latter stages of spring.