by AUSTIN – A sloppy first half for the No. 1 Texas Longhorns in Saturday’s SEC opener against Mississippi State got worse in the final minutes of the second quarter.
After taking a hard shot to the lower body, Texas freshman receiver Ryan Wingo limped to the sideline in visible pain with less than two minutes to play. A few moments later, Arch Manning found DeAndre Moore Jr. for a 49-yard touchdown with 29 seconds left to extend Texas’ lead to 14–6 before halftime.
Once Wingo went to the sideline, he went to the tent and was checked out by the Texas medical staff. When the team returned from the locker room before the third quarter, Wingo was warming up with the team, but with his helmet off it appeared he had a brace on his right knee. He didn’t run the offense on the first play of the third quarter.
It’s unclear what exactly his injury is, but it adds to the list of ailments the Longhorns offense has dealt with this season.
Through the first four games of the season, Wingo has shown why he garnered so much hype entering his freshman year, emerging as the Longhorns’ third receiver. Heading into the SEC opener against Mississippi State, he was the team’s second-leading receiver with nine catches for 239 yards and two touchdowns. He had three catches for 127 yards and a 75-yard touchdown in the 56-7 win over UTSA.
He has received high praise from head coach Steve Sarkisian.
“He’s a hard-working guy. He understands that he doesn’t know everything. He wants to be coached and he takes hard coaching,” Sarkisian said. “But when you figure it out, how does the guy know that he can make plays early if he plays when his opportunities come his way, and that showed up in the spring game. That showed up in our scrimmages in fall camp. That he didn’t.” “I don’t disappoint, you know, in the first week he made some explosive catches and obviously last week in Ann Arbor he had the big setback that got us inside the five-yard line.”
If Wingo misses, the Longhorns will rely more on the likes of Silas Bolden and DeAndre Moore Jr. behind Isaiah Bond and Matthew Golden.
