USC adds more ex-Texas football WR transfer depth in Jake Smith
Entering summer workouts, a big void opened up for the Texas football program in the form of the transfer of the former four-star recruit and junior wide receiver Jake Smith. Texas saw their former talented wideout recruit and Gatorade National High School Football Player of the year Smith enter the NCAA Transfer Portal back in late June.
But it didn’t take too long for Smith to find his next landing spot. He becomes another former Longhorn to put his name in the transfer portal and land with head coach Clay Helton and the USC Trojans in the PAC-12 South. This now makes it more than three former Longhorns that are now playing with the Trojans.
The commitment of Smith to USC was announced in a post on his Twitter timeline on July 6. This now takes another former Longhorn out of the transfer portal. It didn’t take long for it to become clear that Smith likely did not intend to return to Texas after putting his name in the transfer portal this offseason.
Texas football sees WR Jake Smith officially transfer to USC
https://twitter.com/jakesmith27/status/1412501250705289216
There was another post that Smith had on his Twitter timeline that came over the weekend that gave a parting message and thank you to the Longhorns faithful.
This is clearly a sizable loss for the Longhorns in the receiving corps just ahead of the start of fall camp next month. Texas didn’t have all that many proven commodities at wide receiver entering the fall prior to Smith’s transfer. Losing him just adds another big question mark for this wide receiver room.
Texas has also now lost two receivers to transfer that landed with the Trojans, and three total skill position players. The two other skill position players that transferred from Texas, and landed with USC, were junior running back Keaontay Ingram and redshirt sophomore wide receiver/tight end Malcolm Epps.
What Texas is losing with Smith transferring to USC is one of their more proven slot receivers. During his two years playing for Texas (15 total games), Smith registered 48 catches for 568 yards (11.8 yards per catch), and nine receiving touchdowns.
Smith was set to be one of the most productive returning wideouts for the Longhorns this fall. But now there will be more pressure placed on the likes of redshirt sophomore wide receiver Jordan Whittington, redshirt freshman Troy Omeire, redshirt junior Joshua Moore, and freshman Xavier Worthy, among others, in 2021.
Texas finished up last season with a record of 7-3 (5-3 Big 12) under the direction of the former head coach Tom Herman. New head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns are set to open up the 2021 regular season on Sep. 4 at home against Louisiana.