With fall camp underway and the Longhorns' first scrimmage of the season getting ready to be played this Saturday, it is safe to say … the offseason is over.
That means the end of (or, more accurately, the lessening of) off-topic threads on Orangebloods. They’ll never truly stop (which is one of the reasons we love this place).
One of the OT threads this offseason dealt with the question from @Pho King Master of whether The West Wing was the best network television show ever.
Many of you ignored the caveat that he was asking strictly about network television and proceeded to throw out other favorite shows like The Wire or Game of Thrones (neither of which aired on network television).
There’s one episode of The West Wing that popped into my head while listening to Jaydon Blue talk this week.
In “Noel,” Josh Lyman was dealing with PTSD after being shot during an assassination attempt. Towards the end of the episode, he talks to his boss, Leo McGarry, and confesses that he’s worried about being able to keep his job while seeking treatment.
Leo tells him a story to try to reassure Josh that it will be ok.
I thought about this episode after learning that Texas running back Cedric Baxter will be out for the season with a knee injury. Baxter is going to need the help of his teammates to get through this devastating news and the long journey through rehab.
Thankfully, for Baxter, he needs look no further than the man he was going to be sharing carries with this year, fellow running back Jaydon Blue, for inspiration.
Blue has been down in that hole before and he knows the way out.
That’s why he has ‘Philippians 4-13’ tattooed on his arm.
"I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me," Blue said reciting the Bible scripture.
It’s a reminder that he was able to overcome a devastating knee injury, a dislocated kneecap suffered while playing football in junior high.
“A lot of people didn’t believe I would be here today because of the injury,” Blue said. “I had a lot of belief and I tattooed this on my arm because it’s something I always think about when things get hard.”
CJ Baxter’s season-ending knee injury is a blow. There’s just no good way to spin it. It is a blow for Texas, it is a blow for Baxter and it is a blow for all of the teammates who were counting on him to carry a big load for the offense this season.
And now for the cliché – next man up.
“I think at a school like Texas, I think the word replace gets thrown around a little bit,” said senior tight end Gunnar Helm prior to learning that CJ Baxter was injured. “We don't really replace guys here, we just reload. We’ve got the talent to reload.”
Helm was talking about replacing Ja’Tavion Sanders as the starting tight end, but his answer is equally applicable to the running back room.
Baxter arrived at Texas with all of the promise in the world. He was the number two-ranked running back recruit in the country. He immediately won the starting job – and then he got injured.
Next man up – Jonathon Brooks.
Brooks stepped into the starter’s role and flourished. He was actually the second-leading rusher in the nation when he went down with a season-ending injury.
Next man up – Baxter again (with an assist from Jaydon Blue).
Baxter came back and had a very nice end to the season. From the K-State game on, Baxter was the bell cow for head coach Steve Sarkisian’s offense, finishing with a more than five yards per carry average in five of the last seven games.
Blue took over as the second man behind Baxter and ended the year averaging 6.1 yards per carry.
This year, the two were expected to be a dynamic duo, carrying the load in an offense that Sark repeatedly says is a run-first offense. The two were named to the Doak Walker Award watch list this week. They were excited to be on it, together.
“Me and him have gotten super close over the past few months,” Blue told the media this week. “Both of us are just willing to do whatever is best for the team.”
Now, Blue is going to have to be the next man up. But the junior running back has been working for this moment and patiently awaiting his opportunity.
“Two years ago, I was behind two guys that are in the NFL now (Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson),” said Blue. “And even last year, I was behind a group of guys that led that room and taught me the way it goes.
“I always use JB (Jonathon Brooks) as an example. You know, he didn't play much his first two years and then he played a lot last year. He went to the League after one year. So just seeing that, I always look back at that, and it puts a lot of belief in me that I just stay patient at work and everything I want can work out.”
Blue won’t have to carry the load alone. Tre Wisner, Jerrick Gibson and Christian Clark will all get their opportunities to share the work.
Sark wants to run the ball and he will not be afraid to rotate through the running backs to keep them fresh. But he is also the first to point out the number of consecutive years that he has had a 1,000-yard running back in his offense and that means it is usually one back getting the most carries.
Even before Baxter’s injury, Blue was working hard to make sure that he was Sark’s primary carrier.
“Something I wanted to do was gain more weight, to get bigger,” said Blue. “And the other thing is, I talked to Coach Choice a lot, and two things was work on my eyes and being able to pass protect. He always says that, if you can't pass protect, you can't play at running back. You know, we take a lot of pride in pass protecting in that room.”
Blue’s work ethic is one of the reasons both players and coaches say he’s one of the leaders of this year’s team. That came even in spite of the fact that he has not been a regular starter before this season.
“He's played a lot of football, to be honest with you,” Gunnar Helm said when explaining why players look up to Blue. “Don't let the you know, minimum snap count in games last year fool you, especially at the beginning of the year. But he's been stepping up in practice, and every time he touches the ball, you feel like something special is going to happen.”
There’s a reason Gunnar Helm feels like something special is going to happen when Blue touches the ball … because something special usually does happen. Again, he averaged more than six yards per carry in limited snaps. Even if all of those carries were in garbage time (which they weren’t), six yards per carry is an incredibly impressive feat that should not be underestimated.
Blue is blazing fast and is a threat to break it at any minute.
He’ll tell you it’s because he thinks he’s the fastest player on the team.
“In my opinion, I think I am,” said Blue who his teammates will tell you does not lack confidence. “Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of guys that can fly on this team. But if you're just asking me, I think I am.”
Blue's teammates will tell you he’s extremely confident in his abilities – but he backs it up too. He trash talked all of his teammates about how he was going to beat them in pickleball and then he went out and did it.
But there is a difference between confidence and arrogance and Blue knows his limitations.
For example, Blue knows he’s the fastest player on the team, but he also knows he’s not going to be able to go out and compete with Noah Lyles for Olympic gold.
“They’re running in the 9.9’s (for 100 meters), the fastest I ever ran was 10.2,” Blue said, humbly.
Humility, blazing fast speed, strong work ethic and resilience. All of these are attributes that Blue is going to need to lean on this year in order to become the next man up.
TWEETS OF INTEREST
This is Blue’s opportunity to show he’s the next in the line of UT running backs showing out before heading off to the NFL. If Ketch’s prediction is right, and it sounds like a good one to me, then he is going to go pretty high in next year’s draft.
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The UT running backs may move quickly through their time in Austin before heading off to the NFL, but they never forget where they came from or stop looking out for the guys coming in behind them.
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A season-ending injury coming in fall camp is one thing. But what about those injuries that happen during the season? Well it appears Sark may need to be more forthcoming about those in the future.
I’ve long maintained that Sark doesn’t always do his players favors by covering up injuries. Specifically, Xavier Worthy took far too much crap from fans during his sophomore season because he was playing with a broken hand that Sark kept from the public.
I’m still not sure how a defense could do anything to make things worse for a receiver who has a broken hand.
But what I do know is that Worthy’s bad rep about dropping balls kept coming up even during the NFL draft process this year.
Now, if the SEC moves forward with this, those kinds of decisions will be taken out of Sark’s hands.
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One of the best things to come about as a result of social media is that you can learn so much about football that wasn’t available to you before unless you were already on the team or coaching.
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Sark may brag about his running backs, but he really knows what to do with wide receivers and he picked up another great one on Wednesday.
Kaliq Lockett is an elite talent.
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Speaking of elite talent … a LOT of elite talent from UT on display in Paris over the past two weeks. And many of them got there thanks to the incredible coaching they got in Austin.
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I’m sorry, but I think it’s funny that the money UT gave Pitbull to celebrate the move to the SEC just ended up flowing into Florida International’s bank accounts.
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These aren’t pitbulls but they are curious dogs. Good thing they have an owner who wants to help them out.
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This dog is smart enough to be the next Reveille.
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