Steve Sarkisian Has Difficult Decisions Ahead in The Texas Running Back Room

The Texas Longhorns' offense finally looked like the explosive unit many expected to see from Steve Sarkisian's offense, with the changeover to new starting quarterback Arch Manning. Over the weekend, the Longhorns closed the nonconference portion of their schedule with a 55-0 victory over Sam Houston State.

One of the pieces of Texas's offense that could still raise a few questions is the running back room. Quintrevion Wisner and CJ Baxter have both been dealing with injuries through the early part of the season. The absence of the upperclassmen has given the opportunity to the Longhorns' younger running backs a chance, which Sarkisian highlighted at his weekly media availability on Monday.

"We really got to start to assess, you know, as Tre [Wisner] and C4 [CJ Baxter] start finding their way back," Sarkisian said. "Now we've got five of these guys that have carried the ball, and we know can carry the ball, and we start to look at their strengths and areas of maybe where we think they can improve and need to improve."

How has the Longhorns' Running Back Room performed so far?

Texas Longhorns running back Christian Clark (6) runs for yards past Sam Houston Bearkats defensive lineman Darius Jackson (90) | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

Wisner and Baxter were expected to be the Longhorns' leading running backs; however, that has not been the case through four weeks of the season, as Wisner only saw action in game one against Ohio State, and Baxter, who started the next two games, suffered an injury on the first plays of the game against UTEP.

Needing to tap into their depth early, the Longhorns have depended on second-year running backs Jerrick Gibson and Christian Clark, true freshman James Simon, to carry the load as the primary ball carriers for the offense.

Gibson is currently Texas' leading rusher with 155 yards rushing on 36 carries and scored the first rushing touchdown from a Longhorns running back on the season against the Bearkats. Simon has flashed his potential, recording 117 yards on the ground in two games, with Clark not too far behind with 115 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Also, at the availability, Sarkisian talked about the bye week's importance in figuring out a rotation to implement all of the running backs when they are all healthy, and how different games could mean different uses of their multiple running backs.

"How do you balance that out? What does that look like?" Sarkisian said. "That's what a week like this is for. And then how do we complement that, do we use multiple running backs in on the same play...and so, you evolve as the season goes on. Then you try to look at: what are we doing well? And how can we do it better? And what maybe can we do well?"