3 important nuggets from Texas's Thursday fall practice

New faces stepping at running back in the wake of Baxter's injury

Thursday was the first full day of pads-on practice for Texas's running back position without Baxter in the mix in the backfield. As anticipated, junior Jaydon Blue and sophomore Tre Wisner took the first-team practice reps at running back in the rotations today.

"If you polled our team, 'Who are the top three teammates on our team?' Cedric Baxter would be in that top one, two or three as well. As much as we love him for the player that he is, we love him more for the teammate that he is and our thoughts and prayers are with him."

Behind Blue and Wisner in the running back rotation during individual and team drills were the two true freshmen, Jerrick Gibson and Christian Clark, with the second-team offense.

It's also noteworthy that preferred walk-ons Colin Page and Nik Sanders were taking the third-team practice reps at running back today.

Sarkisian spoke about Texas and Tashard Choice building up the necessary talent and depth in the running back room to prepare for these kinds of situations when an important impact RB like Baxter suffers an injury. Texas likes what they have in Wisner and Blue, while indicating that Gibson is ready to handle a decent load out of the backfield in live-game action this coming season in the SEC.

"That's the value of trying to recruit and recruit at a high level. The way we practice the way that we do with a lot of the two-spots, a lot of our guys are getting reps. We're plenty deep enough to still be a very good football team. Again, we would love to have him. That's the nature of football. You have to be able to withstand and deal with injuries whenever they present themselves, whether they're in training camp or whether they're late in the season, potential CFP injuries and such."

Gibson has the size and physicality required to be competitive running between the tackles in the chaos of the trenches of the SEC during his true freshman campaign this regular season. At 5-foot-10 and 205-pounds, Gibson is built like a tank for a true freshman at running back.

All in all, it sounds like Gibson is a bit further along development-wise at running back among the true freshmen in this position group. He's a good receiver out of the backfield, good at running in the zone blocking scheme, and played against a high level of competition at IMG Academy in Florida in the last few seasons of his high school career.

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