Texas improved its health during the bye week

AUSTIN — Coming out of the season’s only bye week, Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian was in a good mood with the Red River Rivalry against the Oklahoma Sooners at the Cotton Bowl looming on Saturday.

An early injury question during Monday’s press conference threatened to derail Sarkisian’s jovial disposition — with four SEC-mandated injury reports prior to conference games, the Texas head coach prefers not to discuss injuries once SEC play begins.

Nevertheless, Sarkisian persevered.

“Naturally, any time you come out of a bye week, if we do it right, we should be healthier than we were going into the bye week, and so I’ll leave that at that,” Sarkisian said. “We’ll see what what it looks like Wednesday night. But I’ll start with that — I think we’re healthier than we were this time a week ago.”

Facing eight straight games to end the season, the Longhorns entered the bye week “banged up” after the road win over the Volunteers.

For the third straight game, Texas was without sophomore defensive lineman Justus Terry, who suffered a toe injury during pregame warmups before the win over Ohio State. Sophomore tight end Nick Townsend also missed the win in Knoxville because of a knee injury sustained against the Buckeyes. Before the trip to Tennessee, sophomore offensive lineman Jordan Coleman joined an injury list also that included junior safety Xavier Filsaime, who is yet to play this season.

During pregame warmups at Neyland Stadium, the focus was on senior running back Hollywood Smothers after the NC State transfer progressed from questionable to probable to off the injury list before the game. But Smothers didn’t appear against the Volunteers after he suffered an apparent setback during warmups.

“We felt like he could be an emergency for us. He was obviously not 100 percent,” Sarkisian said.

Smothers and Townsend were able to return to practice for the Horns last week, according to a report from Inside Texas, a positive development for the availability of both players against the Sooners.

That leaves the status of Terry as the most important update to watch for on Wednesday’s injury report.