Steve Sarkisian provides injury updates ahead of game against Rice

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian began the week with injury updates ahead of the game against Rice.

Morice Blackwell will be the only player unavailable this coming weekend. The junior linebacker will miss several weeks with a knee injury.

Other than that, Sarkisian said everyone else is good to go, Longhorn fans should see a full slate of players against Rice.

“As far as injury wise, you know, the only one real thing right now is Mo Blackwell is going to be down a couple of weeks,” Sarkisian said. “Everybody else on the roster will be available to us this week, which is a good thing.”

Blackwell played in all 12 games last season and finished with pedestrian stats in a reserve role. He had 11 total tackles, seven solo tackles, one tackle for loss and one pass deflection.

As a member of the Class of 2021, Blackwell was a four-star recruit out of Arlington (Texas) Martin, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 47 overall prospect in the state, the No. 33 linebacker in the class and the No. 299 overall prospect in the class.

Steve Sarkisian gives mostly clean bill of health for Texas

Sarkisian said Blackwell would be the only one out for the weekend. Other than, everyone’s good to go for Texas.

He talked about the mindset his team needs to have in the week ahead.

“It’s about our preparation and when we prepare our best, we got great energy every day we walk in the building, every day we go on the practice field, we’ve got really good focus and intensity and you’re being intentional with what we’re doing,” Sarkisian said.

“And that’s what it’s going to take you know, we get challenged by Rice in two ways, you know, most notably one, their style of play, Like I said, it’s very intricate in all three phases, got really good coaches, and then in which the way they play they play hard, they play tough. They’re relentless that way. So we’ve got to work cut out for us on that.”

Texas and Rice will do battle in Austin Saturday with the game slated for a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff.