Texas Loses Hollywood Smothers for the Season to a Torn MCL

Texas kept hoping the news on Hollywood Smothers would come back better than it looked on Saturday. It did not. The senior running back will miss the remainder of the 2026 season with a torn MCL, a diagnosis first reported Thursday by On3’s Pete Nakos and confirmed by 247Sports’ Eric Henry, according to reports by USA TODAY, Athlon Sports and Sports Illustrated.

Smothers went down in the second half of Texas’ 31-3 win over Mississippi State on October 31, taking a hard hit, sitting on the turf holding his left knee and needing help from trainers to get off the field. He had carried four times for minus-6 yards in the game. Texas had already ruled him out for Saturday’s trip to Missouri on both its Wednesday and Thursday SEC availability reports — the Thursday reports turned a one-week absence into the end of his season.

A season that never got to breathe

This was supposed to be the year Smothers put it together on the Forty Acres. The Charlotte product arrived from NC State ranked as the No. 3 running back in the transfer portal by 247Sports and opened the season as Texas’ starter. His best day was also his signature one: 74 yards and two touchdowns in the Week 2 comeback win over then-No. 1 Ohio State, both of his rushing scores this season.

Instead, the year kept interrupting him. Smothers missed the Tennessee game with a lower-body injury and the October 24 Ole Miss game with a shoulder injury, appeared in only six of Texas’ eight games, and had only just returned against Mississippi State when the knee injury ended it. He finishes with 69 carries for 283 yards and two rushing touchdowns, plus 10 catches for 79 yards and another score. He has one season of college eligibility remaining.

Brown’s backfield now

The job does not get smaller with Smothers gone — it just gets narrower. Raleek Brown, who already leads Texas in rushing, becomes the no-doubt lead back: 92 carries for 452 yards and five touchdowns, with 12 receptions for 54 yards and a score. Behind him, Texas will lean more heavily on sophomore Michael Terry III and freshman Derrek Cooper, per The Daily Texan’s reporting on the depth chart.

There is a real difference between losing a starter in September and losing one now. In September there are Saturdays to experiment. In November, with a playoff race running, every carry Brown cannot take goes to a back with a fraction of his workload — against defenses that know exactly where the ball wants to go.

The injury list around him is not short, either

Smothers is the second Texas starter ruled out for the season, after starting left tackle Trevor Goosby. And the Thursday availability report carried more yellow flags: wide receivers Cam Coleman and Ryan Wingo were both listed as questionable for Missouri, per USA TODAY’s reading of the report, and edge rusher Colin Simmons was listed as questionable as well.

No margin left

Texas came in at No. 7 in the first College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday — a spot that, had the season ended after Week 9, would have meant a first-round home game, with the Longhorns one of five SEC teams in the projected 12-team bracket. That cushion is present tense, not permanent. The closing stretch is four straight weeks with no soft landing: at No. 18 Missouri on Saturday (noon ET, ESPN, at Memorial Stadium in Columbia), then at LSU, home against Arkansas, and Texas A&M to finish.

A two-loss team can still get where Texas wants to go. A two-loss team missing its left tackle and one of its two lead backs, with both top receivers on the injury report, has to play something close to perfect football to do it. Saturday in Columbia is the first test of whether the Longhorns still have that in them.