Hopefully the RB room can stay healthy and this won't impact us but stuff like this (happening across college football no doubt) is another reason the redshirt rule needs to just go away. Every athlete should get up to 5 seasons of eligibility period. That's it. No 4 game rule. No injury redshirt (although I could be convinced otherwise on this point). But if a player signs on to a team for a year, they should be expected to finish that year out or lose any Revshare/NIL benefits.
From Gibson's perspective, it makes complete sense to leave the team now as he hasn't burned a shirt and gets to retain this year of eligibility, but we just need to remove the entire concept from the equation. He could stay here and be a depth piece and potentially get a chance to either carve out a role for himself here or help his value in the portal if we end up needing to play him. Instead, it's essentially a wasted year for him and a wasted roster slot for Texas.