3 important nuggets from Texas's Thursday fall practice

Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian held their second full pads on fall practice of preseason camp on Aug. 8. The news cycle coming out of the seventh fall practice on Thursday was the injury news concerning sophomore running back CJ Baxter Jr.

Full contact fall practice returns for Texas football 48 hours before the first scrimmage

The news broke yesterday that Baxter will miss the entire 2024 season due to a knee injury he suffered in full pads practice on Aug. 6. While we're wishing Baxter the best during his recovery and his surgery over the next six to nine months with his knee, Texas needs other running backs on the roster to step up this fall.

Texas is also just a couple of days away from the first scrimmage of fall practice this upcoming weekend. Aug. 10 is the specific date for the first of two fall scrimmages before the start of the upcoming regular season.

Here are three takeaways and important notes from Thursday's full pads fall practice.

Shifts in the pecking order in drills along the offensive line

Kyle Flood is still hard at work figuring out his top group of eight or 10 offensive linemen on the two-deep entering the regular season in Week 2 of fall practice. The Longhorns pretty much have the first-team offensive line set in the second week of fall practice.

But there has been some movement of late for the second-team offensive line in practice, including true freshman offensive tackle Brandon Baker sliding up from the third-team in team drills at different times in the last few days. More interesting movement along the offensive line regarding the distribution of practice reps for the first two units in the trenches happened to the IOL today.

OTF reported that Texas was rotating some players between the first and second teams along the offensive line in team drills in practice on Thursday. One of the interior offensive linemen who took mostly first-team reps along the offensive line in practice today was junior guard Cole Hutson.

Hutson moved into the spot at right guard held by junior DJ Campbell with the first-team offensive line in practice. We've seen Hutson get occasional first-team practice reps at different spots along the offensive line when needed for the Longhorns in the last two offseasons in camp.

Hutson has tremendous versatility, and he is probably getting some work here to stay ready to take that utility role along Texas's offensive line if and when he's needed in live-game action in the SEC this season.