Former Alabama quarterback turned college football commentator Greg McElroy recently spent some time discussing the Tennessee quarterback battle on an episode of Always College Football.
The Vols are 10 workouts deep into the fall camp slate at this point in time, but Josh Heupel doesn’t appear to be whittling down the competition for Tennessee’s three contestants to this point. That could change for the Vols’ second fall scrimmage on Friday, but it was certainly a talking point coming out of the first scrimmage last Saturday.
Heading into the preseason, the two names that were talked about the most were UCLA/App State transfer Joey Aguilar and redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger. And for good reason. Aguilar, on one hand, has two full years of starting experience with the Mountaineers despite it being at a lower level of college football. Merklinger, on the other hand, didn’t see much time during his true freshman season behind now-UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava, but he was at least able to sit back and learn the offense in his first season on Rocky Top.
The third quarterback, who often flew under the radar in these conversations, is true freshman George MacIntyre. Josh Heupel mentioned the former four-star recruit during early conversations about the QB battle. Still, he was somewhat written off at times, not because of a lack of talent, but because he didn’t have the same experience as the other two candidates.
All reports suggest that MacIntyre has been hanging around the competition through these 10 workouts, though. It’s still hard to say if he’s done enough to challenge either Aguilar or Merklinger in the race for the starter, but credit to him for doing enough to continue hanging around. At the very least, it shows that he could be plenty formidable down the road with his career just beginning.
McElroy dove into the latest talk around MacIntyre during his recent episode of Always College Football:
“The quarterback spot is what’s going to be most important to Tennessee challenging to make the college football playoff yet again,” McElroy said. “There’s three guys in this quarterback competition. You’ve got Aguilar, who we’ve talked about already, but you also have Jake Merklinger, who got the first snap at times with the first team offense. Did have a short touchdown pass. Sounds like his accuracy has been a little up and down. The one guy we have not talked a whole lot about is a guy named George MacIntyre, who has been running for the most part with the seconds and the threes. So, it’s not like he’s getting live one reps all the time and he’s just starting to show, man, this is the guy. He’s not quite to that point yet. But, if you talk to anybody that has watched Tennessee practice, you talk to anybody that has watched Tennessee scrimmage, sounds like they might have a gem in George MacIntyre. And while I don’t know if he’ll be the day one starter by any stretch, the fact that he’s in this competition tells you a lot about his makeup, how consistent he is, how accurate he is, and his comfort level right now operating Josh Heupel’s offense.”
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Check out the full clip from ESPN’s Always College Football with Greg McElroy show below:
Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more updates on the final stretch of fall camp before Tennessee Football’s season opener against Syracuse on Aug. 30 in Atlanta, GA.
