Texas RB CJ Baxter suffers knee injury in Longhorns’ camp practice

AUSTIN, Texas — On the day he landed on the watch list for the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top running back, Texas sophomore CJ Baxter suffered a knee injury in practice on Tuesday. A source with knowledge of the injury told Horns247’s Chip Brown that the severity of the injury was unknown as of 7:40 p.m.

Baxter earned his stripes as a true freshman, rushing 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 stepped up down the stretch and helped Texas win the Big 12 title and get to the College Football Playoff after Jonathon Brooks was lost for the season with a torn right ACL in a Nov. 11 road win over TCU.

In the Longhorns’ first game without Brooks, Baxter ran for a season-high 117 yards in a 26-16 road win over Iowa State on Nov. 18. Buoyed by his breakout game against the Cyclones, Baxter averaged 5.3 yards per carry over the final four games of the season, reaching the end zone on the ground in the team’s 49-21 decimation of Oklahoma State in the conference championship game and against Washington in the Sugar Bowl.

After finishing his 2023 season on a high note personally, Baxter told reporters after one of the Longhorns’ camp practices last week that he’d been working on his pad level and learning how to diagnose the weak spots fronts to take his game to another level. Baxter’s main goal, however, was to help Texas get over the hump after losing to the Huskies in the national semifinals and coming one play shy of reaching the national championship game.

“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 running mate, junior Jaydon Blue, said after Tuesday’s practice that it meant a lot for Texas to get two running backs on the watch list for an annual award to the nation’s top running back. Ricky Williams (1997-98), Cedric Benson (2004), D’Onta Foreman (2016) and Bijan Robinson (2022) have won the program’s five Doak Walker Awards (tied with Wisconsin for the most since the award was first presented in 1990).

Whether Baxter or Blue is next in line to continue a rich running back tradition on the Forty Acres, Blue said running backs coach Tashard Choice has fostered a selfless culture in a room where everyone wants to do whatever it takes to win games.

“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.”