With Josh Heupel moving on from defensive coordinator Tim Banks and hiring Jim Knowles to replace him, how Tennessee handles its quarterback room has now become the biggest question of its offseason.
Backup quarterback Jake Merklinger announced its plans to enter the transfer portal Wednesday after spending the last two years in Knoxville. There’s some uncertainty regarding Joey Aguilar’s future eligibility. As the current NCAA eligibility rules stand, this is Aguilar’s last season.
However, Aguilar is a plaintiff on a lawsuit that is challenging NCAA eligibility rules as it relates to former junior college athletes. That lawsuit appears to have a real chance of changing the eligibility rules. But the timeline on when that will happen leaves Tennessee in flux.
“I think it’s like your entire roster where there are moving pieces,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said. “Obviously George (MacIntyre) will be the, the number two here going into the bowl game. And then as we finish that up and you and (Merklinger) enters the portal, with everything that’s going on with Joey and all those pieces, we’ll look to put that position in a room to help us go compete for a championship.”
With Merklinger off to the portal, Tennessee currently projects to have just two scholarship quarterbacks on its roster next season: redshirt freshman George MacIntyre and true freshman Faizon Brandon.
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Both MacIntyre and Brandon are talented but it would be a risk for Tennessee to enter the 2026 season banking that one of them will be ready to be a starter and perform at a high level. Heupel does not like to reveal his plans to the media and he did not disclose whether Tennessee will seek a starting quarterback in the portal.
But even if the Vols don’t add a starting caliber quarterback, they need to add some level of quarterback to provide depth. Heupel remained coy when asked about that but eventually gave in.
“Unless we can go sign Phillip Rivers on a free agent contract,” Heupel said about adding a third quarterback.
“Yeah, I mean there’s been years where you’ve had that happen, where you’ve had to play a third so don’t want to do that but it’s happened before.”
Tennessee added Aguilar to its roster following spring practice last season and he performed relatively well on short notice, throwing for 3,444 yards, 24 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. However, there’s no more spring portal window. And while the portal doesn’t officially open until Jan. 2, all sorts of players are already announcing their intentions to enter the portal and teams are making plans for who they are going to target.
