Texas’ Jonathon Brooks Out for Season with Knee Injury; RB1 in NFL Draft 2024
The Texas Longhorns received bad news Sunday regarding star running back Jonathon Brooks.
Pete Thamel of ESPN reported that Brooks suffered a torn right ACL in the Longhorns 29-26 victory over TCU Saturday, which effectively ends his season.
Brooks was projected as the top running back for the 2024 NFL Draft, per Mel Kiper of ESPN, but now a return to the collegiate ranks for the 2024 season may be the next step for Brooks as he recovers from the injury.
Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian expressed sadness at the development but said the tailback will remain an important part of the team while he recovers.
“We’re heartbroken for Jonathon,” Sarkisian said in a statement. “He was having a fantastic season and leaves a void that needs to be filled. But we know he will continue to be an invaluable leader on our team, helping us prepare as we move forward in our mission this season.”
He also said that he is extremely confident that Brooks will be able to have a fast recovery and that the program will support him throughout the process.
“I know he’ll work extremely hard in his recovery, get back to full speed as soon as he can, and we will be there by his side supporting him through all of that,” Sarkisian said.
Brooks stepped into the Longhorns starting role after 2022 Doak Walker winner Bijan Robinson left for the NFL and was a key contributor to the team’s hot start to the season. Brooks rushed for 1,139 yards and 10 touchdowns on 187 carries in 2023, while also adding 286 yards and a touchdown in the passing game.
The Longhorns will need to replace his production for the remainder of the season, a daunting task for a team with College Football Playoff hopes, but a return to college also means that the running back class in 2024 just got a little thinner.
It was a bit surprising to see Saban leave out his former team, the Alabama Crimson Tide, from his SEC Championship Game prediction. Saban led the Tide to an SEC Championship, toppling No. 1 Georgia in Atlanta, and an appearance in the College Football Playoff last season.
Alabama has made it to three of the last four and four of the last six SEC Championship games.
The competition in the SEC will get even more difficult than it already was as college football’s top conference for the last decade or two with the additions of Texas and the Oklahoma Sooners. The SEC now includes 16 member schools with Texas and Oklahoma in the mix.
And I think at least half the conference could realistically be in the conversation among the contenders for the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff in 2024-25.
What Saban’s SEC Championship Game specifically means for the Longhorns, if it were to come to fruition this fall, is that the conference title would run through the Forty Acres. Saban’s SEC title game matchup pick would be a rematch of the high-stakes regular season matchup at DKR between Texas and Georgia in mid-October.
For Texas to face Georgia twice this fall in the regular season and the SEC Championship Game would mean the Longhorns have a very thin margin for error in the other conference games this year.
Since Texas doesn’t face other top SEC contenders during the regular season, such as Alabama, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and LSU, it’s hard to see UT making a title game run with anything more than two losses in conference play this fall.
Saban wasn’t the only ESPN analyst at SEC Media Days to pick Texas and Georgia for the SEC Championship Game on Monday. Another ESPN media personality heavily associated with Alabama, Greg McElroy, also picked Texas to face Georgia in the SEC title game this upcoming fall.
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