With the Red River Rivalry just days away Texas announced on Monday that a key member of its offensive line unit has been lost for the season. In his weekly press conference Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian said that guard Denzel Okafor will undergo a season-ending surgery next week.
Okafor was injured in last Saturday’s 32-27 win over TCU. The injury was deemed to be a “lower-leg” type injury but know further details were released until Sarkisian made the announcement on Monday about Okafor’s surgery.
“Unfortunately, really liked where he was at from a leadership standpoint and thought he had been playing better and better week in and week out,” Sarkisian said. “So we’ll move forward without him.”
Okafor has started 19 games in his Longhorns career, with 53 total game appearances. He had started all five games this season at left guard. While it’s not clear how Texas will fill the void in his absence, we do know what they did in Fort Worth on Saturday when he went down. Senior right tackle Derek Kerstetter moved to left guard, replacing Okafor, and redshirt freshman Andrej Karic came off the bench to replace Kerstetter at right tackle. According to the most recent depth chart released by Texas the offensive line is still situated in that way.
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