Texas Football: 3 reasons to be excited for transfer WR Tarik Black

2. Potential challenger for targets at Z or X-Wide Receiver

Eagles and Moore are the projected starters at Z and X-wide receiver at the moment. Moore hasn’t played much in a while and Eagles was unreliable at times last season. But Eagles would be the more promising of the two options to head up the receiving corps among the bigger passing game targets this season.

Last season, Eagles caught 32 passes for more than 500 yards and six touchdowns. He averaged 16.3 yards per catch, which is starting to give Eagles the label of a big threat for yards after the catch. Eagles is very hard to bring down once he gets going in the open field. But he has also never was that primary wide receiver.

Black was thrust into that role at the beginning of the last two seasons with Michigan, but the passing game never caught on under Harbaugh and Josh Gattis of late. Michigan brought Gattis on board last season, and it took a long time for former transfer quarterback Shea Patterson to get in rhythm. Thus receivers like Black struggled to get their production going.

He came out of the gates strong during the 2017 and 2019 regular seasons. He had more than 80 receiving yards and one touchdown in the 2017 and 2019 season openers. One of those came in a win over the Florida Gators in 2017 and a win over the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders last year.

Given that Black showed a lot when he’s put in the right role, he could challenge for more targets over the likes of Eagles and/or Moore with the Longhorns.