Texas fall camp day 1: Manning lights it up, Baxter unleashed, and "monster" DL impresses

2025 Fall camp has finally arrived in Austin, and lots of exciting and important things took place on day one, including an update to C.J. Baxter's injury timeline.

The first thing that stood out was how Arch Manning looks to be in midseason form already in terms of ball placement and accuracy, though he did have a fairly underthrown ball to Ryan Wingo later in the day. Manning was lights out on deep throws and out-breaking routes all day long.

He notably threw two absolutely beautiful deep balls to Ryan Wingo and Parker Livingstone early on that sparked applause from the sidelines.

One of the most important notes is that C.J. Baxter was undoubtedly considered "full go" on day one. Though he might've been only moving at 80% speed, he was taking all the rotational reps with Quintrevion Wisner and participating in every drill. The only thing that looked different with Baxter was that he had a brace on his right knee, which is pretty natural after dealing with that type of lower-body injury.

Another thing that stood out in regard to what we've been hearing this offseason is the amount of snap share that Brandon Baker and Andre Cojoe got at right tackle on Wednesday. Despite it being early, the reps definitely weren't as 50/50 as Kyle Flood made it seem like it would be. It could obviously change throughout camp but it looked like Baker was with the 1st-team unit 70-80% of the time.

The tight end group, specifically Jack Endries and Jordan Washington, looked very good running routes and moving around in general. Washington is an absolute unit by the way, you could've told me that he was an offensive tackle and I wouldn't have batted an eye. It's easy to see why the staff said that they could use him more often as a redzone weapon in 2025.

Defensively, the defensive tackle group stood out immediately both for their size and athleticism. The DT pairings were:

1st team - Travis Shaw and Hero Kanu

2nd team - Alex January and Cole Brevard

3rd team - Maraad Watson and Josiah Sharma/Melvin Hills III

True freshman Justus Terry worked at both defensive tackle and JACK on day one, and he looks bigger than his listed weight of 268 pounds in person. I'd guess closer to 280 pounds.

There was a steady rotation at the outside cornerback spot opposite of Malik Muhammad on Wednesday as well. The main two players rotating were Kobe Black and Jaylon Guilbeau, who recently moved to outside corner from star.

True freshman blue-chip cornerback Graceson Littleton (surprisingly) was the starting star/nickel corner for the defense. He didn't just "see time" there on day one, when the coaches called for the 1st-team defensive unit, Littleton trotted out there and lined up in the slot.

Michael Taaffe and Jelani McDonald were the starting safeties, with Jonah Williams sprinkled in from time to time but Williams was getting caught up slowly after spending most of his time with the baseball team over the past few months.

Texas Special Teams Coordinator Jeff Banks put an emphasis on locking down the kick and punt returners for 2025, with Ryan Niblett, DeAndre Moore, Daylan McCutcheon, and Rett Andersen rotating there on day one.

With it being such a hot day in Austin, players were consistently served with watermelon and fruit cups throughout practice to help maintain sugar and energy levels.