Texas Longhorns’ Michael Taaffe Injured vs. Arizona State Sun Devils

The Texas Longhorns had some injury issues pile up at the start of the second half of Wednesday’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal matchup against the Arizona State Sun Devils at the Peach Bowl.

After star offensive tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. walked off gingerly after being down on the turf, Texas safety Michael Taaffe went down as well on the next posssesion. He was on the receiving end of a big hit from Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo and laid on the turf for about a minute while talking to trainers. It’s unclear what injury Taaffe was dealing with, but fortunately for the Longhorns, he was back on the field on the next defensive possession.

Despite his brief departure, the Longhorns got the fourth-down stop on the goal line later in the drive but the offense committed a safety on the next play, allowing ASU to cut the lead to 17-5. Texas cornerback Malik Muhammad then picked up his own ailment on the ensuing possession.

Headed into the Peach Bowl, Taaffe had tallied 63 total tackles (32 solo), two sacks, one forced fumble, two pass breakups and two interceptions.

Taaffe has emerged as one of the leader of Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense this season. He praised his defensive coordinator ahead of the Peach Bowl.

“PK, the type of guy he is, is he’s so calm to where he can get on our tails if we’re not doing what we need to do, but if things are freaking out, if they just completed a 50-yard bomb and it’s a two-minute situation and we call a timeout and everybody’s freaking out, ‘Oh no, are they going to score and beat us,’ PK is the one that’s not freaking out,” Taaffe said. “He’s the one that’s calming everybody down. He’s the leader that we need. He’s saying ‘Alright, here we go, we’re going to go [do] this next call, everybody just calm down and do your job, execute, let’s get off the field, let’s win this game.’ He shows up in big games and calls the right calls and puts us in a great spot.”

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