Referencing multiple Textures from a Component

I have a Player GameObject which contains a SpriteRenderer Component. I have set the Sprite property to the right texture, e.g. archer.png. However, I would like to dynamically change that texture based on the player's equipment. For example, switching the sprite to warrior.png or mage.png.

I understand how to dynamically change the texture by calling Material.SetTexture. My question is what is the best practice for "referencing" those different textures?

Option 1 - Bind texture directly from the editor

hould I create a field on my script for each texture which can be set?

 Texture archer_texture;
 Texture mage_texture;

Option 2 - Load from Prefab

nd set those all within the Unity editor? Should I create all of those textures as prefabs, and then instantiate them by name?

 ... = Instantiate(Resources.Load("archer_texture_prefab"));

Option 3 - Use a TextureAtlas?

r, should I put all those textures into one file and use a TextureAtlas? If I did that, is there an easy way to dynamically set the texture coordinates to use the right 'section' of the image?

All of these methods seem like overkill. Am I missing something more obvious?

Ideally I could just dump the textures into a folder (e.g. /Textures/PlayerTextures/) and then load them by name. Is that possible?