Right before the game Saturday one of the biggest position battles was settled, but the Gamecocks are reopening the competition this week.

After spending the final few weeks of camp deciding on a right tackle head coach Will Muschamp said the starter will be decided on a week-to-week basis with the Gamecocks going through a few different options.

“That’ll be a week to week thing. Jaylen Nichols is in the conversation. Moving Dylan back to right and Jazston to left tackle,” Muschamp said. “We’ll have great competition each week. guys have to bring their A-game to practice every day and to the meeting room. That’ll promote some consistency in performance, which we need.”

Jakai Moore started there in Saturday’s 31-27 loss to Tennessee, playing well and finishing with 66.4 overall grade and playing the majority of the time there.

He was spelled by Vershon Lee for a little bit but Moore played 64 snaps against the Vols in what Muschamp thought was a good outing.

“I thought Jakai was solid in the game. He got beat inside on an inside move by a defensive end for a tackle for loss,” he said. “We just have to clean up some fundamentals in protection. Vershon played I think 12 snaps in the game and did some really nice things in the run game. We have to clean things up in protection.”

The Gamecocks dropped their season opener and the offensive line, after a suspect first half, responded well after halftime and played well as the Gamecocks put up 20 second-half points and could have had a chance to win outside of a special teams miscue.

They got good outings from some of their interior guys, but Muschamp said there is still a lot of room for growth, and challenged one of his longtime starters at the right guard position.

"We have to continue to improve,” he said. “Jovaughn (Gwyn) needs to continue to improve and get better. I feel like he had a good training camp but was just OK last night. We need to improve and get better there.”