Former five-star prospect CJ Baxter had every right to be bitter.
Coming out of high school in 2023, he was the No. 1 running back in the entire country. He was universally projected to be college football's next elite superstar at Texas. Instead, his career was violently derailed in 2024 with an LCL/PCL tear in preseason camp, followed by a significant hamstring injury early in 2025.
Having the game stripped away so abruptly forced Baxter into the transfer portal, ultimately landing him in Lexington to rebuild his career with Kentucky. But rather than letting the frustration of those lost seasons consume him, the Wildcats' new running back is leaning on a deeply spiritual perspective.
"I think that my knee injury, I am not happy it happened, but I am happy for what He did for me, and I say that because it made me sharper mentally," Baxter explained. "I don't know if you guys know about the book of Job in the Bible, but Job was a guy who had everything, and he had all his stuff taken away."
A biblical blueprint for resilience
In the biblical narrative, Job is tested by unimaginable loss as a test. God allowed Satan to strip Job of his wealth, his health, and his family. The only thing he couldn't do was kill him. Yet Job refuses to abandon his faith, ultimately seeing his life restored. For a young athlete who lost his health, his starting job, and his projected path to NFL stardom in the blink of an eye, the parallels are deeply personal.
"He had the riches, family, everything. You name it, and he had it. And it was to ultimately test his faith," Baxter said. "He still fall back on his faith. And I genuinely believe when I went through that knee injury, I was Job. God did that for a reason. So, that's why I generally don't believe there's nothing I can't go through that I can't overcome now."
He knows how hard he fought, but he also understands how precious the gift he has is. He isn't going to give up.
Fueling the Kentucky comeback
When an elite athlete goes from having everything to having the game ripped away from them, the psychological toll is often just as hard as the physical rehab. Some players lose their edge; others simply burn out. Even more, just quit.
Baxter is choosing to weaponize the adversity that could have torn him apart. By framing his devastating injuries as a test of endurance rather than a permanent setback, he arrives at Kentucky with an unbreakable mental foundation. That past trauma is the ultimate psychological fuel to dominate the SEC this fall.