Texas football recruiting: Four-star RB Cedric Baxter Jr. commits, Longhorns move up to No. 3 in rankings
Baxter, a top-50 national recruit from Orlando, chose Texas over Florida, Miami and Texas A&M, pushing the Longhorns' 2023 class past Ohio State and Georgia.
Four-star running back Cedric Baxter Jr. committed to Texas on August 10, 2022, according to reporting from CBS Sports and On3, choosing the Longhorns over Florida, Miami and Texas A&M. Baxter, a rising senior at Edgewater High School in Orlando, Florida, stands 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds.
The commitment made Baxter the fifth top-50 national recruit to join Texas' 2023 class, according to CBS Sports, pushing the Longhorns' class past Ohio State and Georgia into the No. 3 spot nationally, behind Notre Dame and Alabama. On3 separately ranked Baxter as the nation's No. 1 running back in its rankings for the class.
Rankings for Baxter varied slightly by outlet: 247Sports listed him as the No. 31 overall player in the class, the No. 2 running back nationally and the No. 7 player in Florida, while Sports Illustrated's SI99 rankings placed him as the top running back in the class. The sources reviewed did not reconcile these differing methodologies beyond noting each outlet's own ranking system.
Joining a loaded class
Baxter's commitment came alongside that of quarterback Arch Manning, described in CBS Sports' reporting as the most-hyped prospect of his recruiting class, who had already committed to Texas. The Early Signing Period was roughly four months away at the time of Baxter's announcement, according to the reporting.
How scouts describe his game
A potential workhorse on both Saturdays and Sunday.
That is how 247Sports analyst Andrew Ivins described Baxter, comparing him to NFL running back Le'Veon Bell and highlighting his physical size combined with lateral movement ability, according to the CBS Sports report citing 247Sports' scouting profile.
What it signals for Texas' rebuild
Landing a top-50 running back alongside a headline quarterback commitment reflected an aggressive push by Texas' coaching staff under Steve Sarkisian to reestablish the program as a national recruiting power, per 247Sports' framing of the commitment, though the sources reviewed did not detail how much of that push was attributable to Sarkisian personally versus broader program momentum.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by CBS Sports, On3 and 247Sports. It restores a story originally published on this site in August 2022; figures are as reported at the time.