Texas Football: 5 biggest fall camp position battles

1. H-wide receiver (Slot)

The Competition: Joshua Moore (RS-Fr.), Jake Smith (Fr.), Jordan Pouncey (RS-So.), Devin Duvernay* (Sr.)

I put an asterisk by the name of rising senior Texas football wide receiver Devin Duvernay since he’s more likely to play at z-wide receiver than in the slot. If Herman is confident that there’s another good starting candidate to play at z-wide receiver that overshadows the importance of Duvernay, then he could move to the slot.

The two most talented, but youngest, options that the Longhorns have to start out of the slot are redshirt freshman Joshua Moore and true freshman and the reigning Gatorade National High School Football Player of the Year Jake Smith.

For the long-term, the Texas offense should plan on Smith winning the starting role. He’s just too versatile and elusive to not utilize beyond his true freshman campaign. It will also be difficult for the coaching staff not to play Smith in four games or less. If Moore wins the starting job and Smith is used in rare spots, he could save one year of eligibility and still get valuable game experience.

The other option on hand for Herman and this Longhorns receiving corps is the underrated redshirt sophomore Jordan Pouncey. Outside of two solid spring game outings for Pouncey, he didn’t get the chance to prove himself in game action yet. It is worth giving him a couple looks out of the slot this fall if nothing else.

This might be the closes projected starter decision of all the position battles on this list for the Longhorns.

Projected Starter: Jake Smith