Tennessee football has not officially named its starting quarterback. With just over two weeks until the season kicks off, Josh Heupel has declined to pick his signal caller during his media availabilities so far. However, a national reporter has reported that there may be one quarterback creating some separation.
On3’s Pete Nakos, who was at the center of the Nico Iamaleava NIL negotiation reports that resulted in Iamaleava departing for UCLA in the spring, picks Bruins transfer Joey Aguilar as the frontrunner. On3’s tweet of the report said Tennessee is ‘trending toward’ naming Aguilar as the starter.
The next time Heupel will meet with the media will be Friday morning, following the Vols’ second scrimmage of fall camp. When he most recently spoke last Saturday, he praised Aguilar, as well as redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger and true freshman George MacIntyre.
“I’m not naming a starter today, but all three of those guys have shown some really good characteristics of doing some special things with the ball,” Heupel said. “Also managing the game, eliminating negatives. And there’s some things that each of them collectively as a group, we got to get better at. And that’s always the nature of this point in training camp.”
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Aguilar joined Tennessee in the spring with the expectation of competing with Merklinger and MacIntyre for the starting quarterback job. Initial expectations were that Iamaleava would slide back into his starting role, but reported NIL negotiations led to a fallout between the sides. As a result, Iamaleava left in a messy transfer scenario and ended up at UCLA.
With Aguilar transferring from App State to UCLA in the initial transfer window, he saw his projected starting job with the Bruins usurped from him. He would enter the spring window, as well, and find his way to Knoxville to replace Iamaleava.
Now, after spending spring camp learning a new offense, he is being asked to do it all over. He brings the most experience to the room of signal callers, but doesn’t have a spring session under his belt with Heupel and company.
Aguilar went into the recent 2024 season with high expectations with the Mountaineers. After a dominant showing the year prior, he threw for 3,003 yards on a 56% completion rate. He tossed 23 touchdowns but turned the ball over with 14 interceptions in just 11 games. On the ground, he added 207 yards and two touchdowns on 59 attempts.
In 2023, Aguilar torched the App State record books. He set new program-best marks for a single season in passing yards (3,757), passing touchdowns (33), total offense (4,002), 200-yard passing games (13), pass completions (293) and pass attempts (460).
That year earned him Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year and Cure Bowl MVP. He steered App State to a 9-5 record, Sun Belt Championship Game appearance and bowl win over Miami (Ohio).
He began his career at the junior college level, playing at Diablo Valley for two seasons just outside San Francisco. Prior to that, he played for two years at Freedom High School in Antioch, California. He earned First-team All-Bay 6 in both seasons there.
