Tennessee football has decided on who will be its starting quarterback for the 2025 season. Josh Heupel’s offense will officially be led by Joey Aguilar, the Appalachian State and UCLA transfer who joined the Vols in the spring portal window. He beat out redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger and true freshman George MacIntyre for the position on the depth chart. This was first reported by Brent Hubbs of VolQuest.
Tennessee entered the offseason thinking it would return its starter from its College Football Playoff push a year ago. However, amidst reported NIL negotiations, Nico Iamaleava and UT had a messy divorce that resulted in him entering the transfer portal during the spring window. He would make his way to UCLA.
This pushed out Aguilar, who transferred to the Bruins for his final year of eligibility after a two-year stint at App State. He quickly committed to Tennessee to replace Iamaleava. This gave him a short window to acclimate himself to the team and new offense.
“Coming from JUCO to App State, playbooks change and terminology and verbiage,” Aguilar said ahead of fall camp. “But, some things kind of stack on top of each other in where you go. Just learning how Coach Joey (Halzle) teaches it, Coach Heup teaches it, and taking from when I ran it. Some plays I ran other places, just bringing that over of what I know and then what they’re teaching and how they want to run it. It kind of makes things a little easier, but definitely, there was stuff I had to learn and dig deeper in. I feel like the experience of going from JUCO to App State and even UCLA helped me get the playbook down a little easier.”
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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.
