As the Texas Longhorns mounted their dominant win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs last night, both teams' injury lists grew in all the worst places.
With running back Hollywood Smothers, defensive back Graceson Littleton, and wide receiver Cam Coleman all going down for the Horns, head coach Steve Sarkisian has a small (but growing) injury problem on the 40 Acres.
Before kickoff, the team was already without star edge rusher Colin Simmons, fellow edge rusher Richard Wesley, and elite offensive lineman Trevor Goosby. After the game, Sarkisian tacked on even more players to the list, including cornerback Kade Phillips and wide receiver Ryan Wingo.
"All integral parts to the team. The severity of all of those guys is unknown at the moment," Sarkisian said. "What's gonna be the emphasis for this week? Not only getting these guys back, but obviously Colin. And as many of these guys as we can get back, the better team we're going to be."
Losing more players from the starting lineup, on either side of the ball, is far from ideal, especially with the upcoming games that Texas is staring down the barrel of.
Texas can't afford a lengthy injury list with Tigers on the prowl
The next two weeks have Texas not only playing on the road again, but the Horns will be playing two of the top teams in the SEC: the Missouri Tigers and the LSU Tigers.
Not only do both Tigers' teams boast dynamic offenses, but they also have dominant defenses, so the Longhorns need to have their key players available at every position possible, just like Sarkisian said.
"Big picture, November is obviously a critical month for any team, but most notably for us [is that] three of the four are on the road," Sarkisian said about the Horns' upcoming stretch of games. "It's gonna take all three phases... That's what it's gonna take, when you go on the road in this league, you've gotta pack it all."
Of course, Goosby was ruled out for the remainder of the season, and without the leading left tackle in the lineup, the pressure undeniably got to quarterback Arch Manning.
However, even with both Simmons and Wesley sidelined for the game, and with Littleton and Phillips going down before the clock hit zero, the Texas defense looked virtually as dominant as it had all season.
Sarkisian is completely right that the emphasis (or at least one of them) has to be on getting the roster back to complete health (or at least as close to complete health as possible).
In Week 10, the Horns will take on Missouri in Columbia, and just one week later, Texas will travel to Baton Rouge to face LSU. The initial availability ahead of the Week 10 matchup will be an extremely telling sign of how the Longhorns will look on Saturday.
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