AUSTIN, Texas — Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian wanted his team to use the week after a 22-19 overtime loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship to get healthy.

The Longhorns returned to practice on Monday ahead of their first-round College Football Playoff meeting with Clemson on Saturday (3 p.m., TNT) with Sarkisian feeling good about his club’s well-being. Three offensive starters dealing with ankle issues — offensive lineman Kelvin Banks Jr., wide receiver Isaiah Bond and quarterback Quinn Ewers — were on the field during an afternoon practice at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, participating to varying degrees.

The 6-foot-4-inch, 320-pound Banks took his left tackle spot with the first-team offense while media members were present for a brief viewing window. The Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy winner, Banks injured his left ankle early in the team’s 17-7 road win over Texas A&M in the regular-season finale on Nov. 30, which forced him to miss the SEC Championship.

With that said, Sarkisian admitted on Monday that he didn’t want unnecessarily to push his consensus All-American tackle with the CFP on the horizon.

“I was probably the one that held him back more than he actually wanted to do, but I wanted him to come back today feeling really good about where he was at,” Sarkisian said during his news conference. “I’m comfortable with him.”

The same goes for Ewers, who has been dealing with an ankle issue since he was taken down to the ground on a hip-drop tackle at the end of a scramble in the second quarter of the team’s 31-14 win over Kentucky on Nov. 23. Ewers played through the injury in the win over the Aggies and the loss to the Bulldogs.

Regardless, Sarkisian likes where Ewers is heading into a do-or-die game against the Tigers on Saturday. Specifically, Sarkisian was encouraged by Ewers practicing last week without the TayCo AthleticX brace he wore against Texas A&M and Georgia.

“I think he’s continually getting better,” said Sarkisian. He said Ewers felt better coming out of the SEC Championship than he did going into the game, one in which he was sacked six times while throwing for 358 yards and a touchdown.

“That was a positive,” Sarkisian said. “That was a physical game, and so him [practicing] without the brace last week, running around, was really encouraging.”

Bond has been hampered by an ankle injury since the Red River Rivalry on Oct. 12.

Bond didn’t return to the 34-3 win over Oklahoma after leaving the field in the first half. He fought through the issue in the team’s 30-15 loss to Georgia at home on Oct. 19.

Bond didn’t play in an Oct. 26 road win over Vanderbilt, instead using the team’s victory over the Commodores and the ensuing open date to get himself primed for the stretch run of conference play.

After catching a combined seven passes for 103 yards and a touchdown to go along with a 44-yard run in consecutive wins over Florida (49-17 at home on Nov. 9) and Arkansas (20-10 on the road on Nov. 16), Bond only recorded three receptions for 49 yards and had one rushing attempt for three yards over the team’s last three games.

He had a 22-yard catch in the SEC Championship before his right ankle was pinned underneath him while blocking in the open field, forcing him to the sideline late in the second half.

Sarkisian said Bond is “kind of in the same boat as” Banks and Ewers. Still, while Banks and Ewers appeared to be full participants in practice on Monday, Bond didn’t look to be full go shorts during the media viewing window.

“Any time you have an ankle injury, it just takes time,” Sarkisian said of Bond, who’s tied for third among all Texas players in yards receiving (532) and touchdown catches (five) while ranking fourth in receptions (33). “We really took last week to shut him down completely to try to get him as healthy as we could.

“He’s going to do everything in his power to play this week, but we’re going to have to monitor that daily as it goes,” he added. Sarkisian also said he and Bond “had a great meeting last week,” presumably to go over the plan to get him back on the field.

“I’ll get a little better gauge coming out of practice today and tomorrow as to kind of where he’s at and how what his availability will look like for Saturday.”