Texas Football: 5 key injured Longhorns players heading into BYU game

After maintaining a pretty clean bill of health in the first few weeks of the regular season, the injury bug has bitten Texas football hard in the last few games. Texas lost a handful of key players on the two-deep due to injury in the Week 5 win over the No. 24 Kansas Jayhawks at home. And then, a few more starters were knocked out due to injury in Week 6 in the Red River Rivalry game against the No. 12 Oklahoma Sooners.

And despite getting the bye week to rest and heal up after the tough last-minute 34-30 loss to Oklahoma in Red River on Oct. 7, the Longhorns still had lagging injury issues heading into last weekend’s contest against the Houston Cougars. Texas had multiple players injured in the previous three weeks who couldn’t play against Houston.

Texas football injury updates heading into the BYU game in Week 9

To make matters worse, the Longhorns suffered an additional bout of injuries in the narrow 31-24 win on the road over Houston on Oct. 21. Texas lost at least a half-dozen players, including multiple key starters on both sides of the ball, to injuries over the weekend against Houston.

Head coach Steve Sarkisian provided updates for a host of the Longhorns players dealing with injuries this week in his Monday press conference on Oct. 23. Here’s a look at injury updates for five key Longhorns players heading into the BYU game on Oct. 28.

Jalen Catalon, S

The injury bug hit Texas’ secondary the hardest in the last few weeks. Senior safety Jalen Catalon was one of the five Longhorns players who either missed or were knocked out of the Houston game last weekend due to injury.

Catalon originally suffered a leg injury in the loss to Oklahoma in Red River on Oct. 7, forcing him to leave the game in the first half. He wasn’t dressed for the Longhorns against Houston last weekend.

In his Monday press conference on Oct. 23, Sark said Catalon is “week-to-week” with the leg injury.

In Catalon’s absence, true freshman safety Derek Williams Jr. has taken more live-game reps. Junior safety Michael Taaffe has also rotated in at field safety for more snaps in the last two weeks with Catalon sidelined due to injury.

Expect to continue to see a lot of Williams at field safety in live-game action with Catalon still dealing with the lingering leg injury heading into the BYU contest this weekend.