With starting running back CJ Baxter out for the season, Jaydon Blue is expected to step into the lead role for the Texas football team. Here are five things to know about Blue, a 6-foot, 200-pound junior from Klein Cain High School outside of Houston.

Blue has had limited touches at Texas

Blue has played in 23 games for Texas, but he has only 80 career carries for a total of 431 yards and three touchdowns. His busiest stretch came late last season after starting running back Jonathon Brooks suffered a knee injury in the eighth game of the year against TCU. In the final three games, Blue ran for 213 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 29 carries while splitting rushes with Baxter. He also had 13 catches for 128 yards and another touchdown over the final four games.

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Speed to burn for former sprinter

Blue is the fastest player on the team. Don’t believe it? Just ask the uber-confident Blue, who hasn’t met a race he doesn’t think he can win. After running an official time of 10.7 seconds in the 100-meter dash as a junior at Klein Cain, he recently said he can hit 10.2 seconds. That blistering time doesn’t quite match up to the 9.79 run by gold-medalist Noah Lyles at the Paris Olympics, but it compares to the 10.19 run by Class 6A state champion Jelani Watkins at the 2024 UIL state track and field meet.

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Blue sat out his senior year of high school

Blue dealt with knee injuries throughout his youth, and he said he underwent two knee surgeries in middle school. Those knee issues were a reason that he sat out his senior season at Cain after rushing for a total of 3,767 yards and 46 touchdowns over his sophomore and junior years. That massive production made him a four-star recruit in the class of 2022 despite sitting out his senior year.

Jaydon Blue: a big-play, home-run hitter

Blue averaged 6.1 yards per carry last season, which tied him with Brooks for team-high honors among players with at least 15 carries and would have tied him for 21st in the nation if he had the requisite number of carries. His three touchdown runs came on lengths of 16, 34 and 69 yards, respectively.

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So long, kick return duties

Blue had 80 yards on kickoff returns last season and had worked on kick returns in recent practices. But the Longhorns don’t have a lot of veteran depth behind him at running back, especially after Savion Red entered the transfer portal in the offseason, so Blue’s days as a kick returner have likely ended. Sophomore Quintrevion Wisner is the only other running back on the roster with a collegiate carry.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What to know about Jaydon Blue, the replacement for Texas football's CJ Baxter