AUSTIN, Texas — After suffering a knee injury in Tuesday’s practice, Texas sophomore running back CJ Baxter will miss the 2024 season.
A source told Horns247’s Chip Brown on Tuesday that the full extent of Baxter’s injury during the first fall camp practice for the Longhorns in full pads wasn’t known in the hours after it happened. However, a source told Brown on Wednesday that Baxter tore the LCL and PCL in his right knee, which will require season-ending surgery.
As a true freshman, Baxter rushed for 659 yards (4.8 yards per attempt) and five touchdowns. A 247Sports five-star prospect ranked No. 30 in the Top247 for 2023, Baxter bounced back from an early-season foot injury in time to make the most of his chance for more touches after Jonathon Brooks tore his right ACL in a Nov. 11 road win over TCU.
Baxter ran for a season-high 117 yards in a 26-16 road win over Iowa State on Nov. 18, the first game Texas played without Brooks on the field. Averaging 5.3 yards per carry over the final four games of the season, Baxter had a rushing touchdown in the team’s 49-21 rout of Oklahoma State in the Big 12 championship game and against Washington in the team’s College Football Playoff semifinal at the Sugar Bowl.
After finishing his 2023 season on a high note personally, Baxter told reporters following a recent Longhorn practice that he’d spent his offseason working on running with better pad level and learning how to diagnose the weak spots in defensive fronts. Baxter wanted to take his game up a notch, but his main goal was to help Texas get over the hump after coming up short of reaching the national championship game last season.
“We got far last year, but we know how it feels to get that far and not go out on top,” said Baxter. “This year, we don’t want to go that far and not finish the job.”
Baxter’s injury occurred on the same day he and junior Jaydon Blue were named to the watch list for the Doak Walker Award, which recognizes college football’s top running back. The Longhorns are tied with Wisconsin for the most Doak Walker Award winners since the honor was established in 1990 with Ricky Williams (1997-98), Cedric Benson (2004), D’Onta Foreman (2016) and Bijan Robinson (2022) bringing the trophy back to the Forty Acres.
With Baxter done for the season, Blue will get a chance to establish himself as the next elite Texas running back. That being said, Blue seemed as proud of Baxter as himself for being named a Doak Walker Award candidate when he met with reporters following Tuesday’s practice, which speaks the culture Tashard Choice has fostered in the running back room.
“It just shows the versatility and the culture that we have here, not only [in] the running back room, but on the team,” Blue said. “There’s [four] guys that have done it before, so me and Ced being able to be on that list is pretty good for us.”
For Blue and the Longhorn backs, it’s a case of next man up with Baxter on the shelf until 2025.