With less than 100 days until the start of the college football season, ESPN’s David Hale took on the tall task of making a tier list for all 138 FBS quarterback situations across the sport heading into the season.
Here’s got the usual suspects with tiers such as the top quarterbacks in the sport, the underrated players, and “I guess we’re doing this” all the way near the bottom.
Tennessee’s quarterback tandem of George MacIntyre and Faizon Brandon comes in at the Tier 12 spot, which is labeled “What’s behind Door No. 2?”
While this does make sense in some ways, it doesn’t in others. And that’s not to say that Tennessee’s duo should be in a higher or lower tier; it’s more so talking about the category that they were put in. Hale specifically categorizes the group as: “Tier 12 presents the ultimate combination of the devil you know vs. the one you don’t.”
Why does this work for Tennessee? Because Door No. 2, in this case, is a five-star freshman quarterback who has never had a snap of in-game collegiate action. That makes sense. But it also doesn’t really work because George MacIntyre, while he has been in the program for a year and is perfectly well known to the coaching staff on the practice field, doesn’t necessarily fit into the “devil you know” spot.
During his true freshman season at Tennessee, MacIntyre was the third-string quarterback behind Joey Aguilar and Jake Merklinger. He only played in two games, against ETSU and New Mexico State, recording 69 yards on 7-of-9 passing. While it’s fair to say that MacIntyre’s practice habits and makeup are known to the Tennessee coaching staff, he doesn’t even have double-digit passing attempts in college football yet, much less against SEC competition heading into a new nine-game conference slate. His ability as a starter in meaningful games hasn’t necessarily been seen by anyone yet, outside of internal scrimmages during the spring camp slate.
This is all a bit of nitpicking, and it’s hard to ask for a perfect list that satisfies every quarterback’s spot when you’re talking about nearly 140 players across the FBS landscape. But it is interesting to break down.
“On one hand, each of these teams could go with a veteran player — either an in-house talent or a portal addition. They’re all safe(ish) bets,” Hale writes in his Tier 12 writeup. “On the other hand, there’s a true freshman with massive upside and virtually no practice reps.”
Again, nitpicking, but perhaps Tennessee might fit better in a description of ‘the devil you think you might know vs the one you don’t.’
More From RTI: SEC Athletic Directors, Greg Sankey Seemingly Don’t See Eye to Eye on College Football Playoffs
None of this is to say which of these two players is ahead in the competition or will win the starting job this fall. That’s still a big mystery at this point. Josh Heupel conducted the first stage of his quarterback competition during spring training camp and was adamant that he would allow his players to soak in the feedback over the summer before resuming the competition in the fall. With two freshman quarterbacks in the running, one only having nine attempts and the other being a true freshman, this makes all the sense in the world.
“Don’t expect a guy to be named here during the course of spring ball,” Heupel said during spring camp. “I think it’s important that all the guys in that room learn and grow throughout the course of spring, also have a chance to go back in your summer months, digest it, reinstall and come back a much better player and compete and earn it in front of their teammates as you get into training camp.”
Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle explained what his message was to the quarterbacks was before camp started, and what he was looking for out of them before the summer.
“Yeah, the biggest thing, and we talked about this before we went into camp, is you can’t play tight trying not to make a mistake,” Halzle said. “That’s not how a job is won. You got to go cut it loose. You got to play well. You got to play hard. Show that you can make plays while taking care of the football. That’s the biggest thing. I think a lot of times guys either go one way too hard. They try to make every play and they maybe give some stuff away. And then they try to play too tight to not make a mistake, to not lose the job, and that’s not what we want to see either. So we want to see guys go out there, cut it loose, play really hard, play really fast, but then let’s be aggressive with the ball, not reckless with the ball.”
Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more Tennessee Football coverage
One Response
Its typical ESPN. This goes back to when Peyton was a solid choice for Hypesman, and its sad. Even when UT Baseball won the NC there, you didnt see that much coverage on ESPN other than what they had to show. To sit there and not even give a decent nod to either Faizon or George. Two highly touted QBs. I just wished there were other decent sports channels to watch, Fox is good on Pro Football, not so good on SEC TV. I hope, whichver QB shines the most, lights it up this season. And I also consider this a make or break season for Coach Heupel. With the talent he has on that team, and he is in that season where we should know where we stand now and going forward.