On Wednesday, Tennessee football will become fully entrenched in a quarterback competition during fall camp.
The Vols will assess what transfer Joey Aguilar, redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger and true freshman George MacIntyre bring to the table to see who the best option to lead the team will be.
When will this decision be made, though?
During local media day on Tuesday, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel acknowledged he’d like to give the nod to someone sooner rather than later. There are plenty of positives from having a starter named, however, he doesn’t want to give out the title without it first being earned.
“Yeah, sure. Absolutely. That gives you more time to build kind of continuity, whatever it might be,” Heupel said. “But at the end of the day, I think it’s really important, you guys heard me say it at (SEC) media days, that somebody’s got to go earn it. And it’s not in one throw, it’s not in one day. The consistency of who you are, the growth of who you are and how you continue to grow from practice to practice. And I think it’s important the staff sees that. But most importantly, I think let your players see that as well.”
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Don’t expect the battle to linger into the season, though. Offensive coordinator Joey Halzle noted the importance of the team understanding that whoever is the quarterback on the field with the offense has earned that position. That means there likely won’t be a two-quarterback system being employed in Knoxville.
However, he echoed the same sentiment as Heupel as far as not wanting to rush into it. While there is an urgency to crown the starter in some regards, there is a fear of pulling the trigger too early.
“Someone’s got to take it. Someone’s got to step up and take it, prove it,” Halzle said. “And there’s multiple ways to do that. Obviously as soon as you can get to that guy and let your guys start rallying behind one person and understanding their skill set and tailoring the offense to them, the better. But we can’t be in a rush to do that because if it doesn’t present itself organically, then you’re just going to be trying to put a square piece in a round hole.”
There is one prior quarterback battle to compare this one to in Heupel’s time at Tennessee. When he got the job in 2021, he inherited Hendon Hooker and Harrison Bailey. After the spring game, he added Joe Milton III.
That year, Milton won the job with the announcement being made on Aug. 30. This was the Monday ahead of a Thursday kickoff against Bowling Green.
It’s worth noting that it didn’t stick for long, though. Milton was injured in week two against Pitt and had to exit the game. Hooker took over afterward and never looked back, snagging the starting job until his own injury sidelined him at the end of 2022.
