Bowl games outside of the College Football Playoffs often provide the opportunity for teams to get inexperienced and younger players valuable game action heading into the offseason. Even at the quarterback position, we’ve seen Tennessee start a true freshman in Nico Iamaleava in the Citrus Bowl to give him a head start into the next year.
In the case of the Music City Bowl between the Vols and Illinois, that won’t be the case at quarterback, though. Both starters, Joey Aguilar for UT and Luke Altmyer for the Illini, are playing in the game and not opting out. That means for the Vols, true freshman signal caller George MacIntyre will at least start the game on the bench.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel isn’t ready to commit to MacIntyre playing in the game, either. He didn’t rule it out, but said he’d need to see how the game developed first, and there isn’t a set plan in place to insert him for a series or anything of that nature.
“We’ll just kind of see how the game unfolds and what the identity of the game is,” Heupel said on Monday. “Nothing where we’re planning on putting him in second series or anything like that.”
More From RTI: What Tennessee OC Joey Halzle Said Previewing Music City Bowl
Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle said he’d be comfortable in the event MacIntyre did see the field on Tuesday against Illinois, though. This is thanks to a strong string of bowl practices that the staff treated like spring ball for the freshman.
“George has done a great job,” Halzle said. “When we first got to bowl prep, he was taking (backup) reps, too. So this didn’t get just thrown on out of nowhere. He was a guy that we knew that we needed to take December and use it basically as a new spring ball for him, so he could get started and start getting those reps coming out of that, ‘Hey, I’m a redshirt guy now. I’m pushing into a guy that’s going to be competing for playing time in the future.’
“So he’s done a great job handling it. He’s a really competitive kid, really smart kid. Mature beyond his years. His pedigree, with a lot of college football is in his blood, and he’s been around it his whole life. So he handled it the way I expected him to — mature, business-like. And I’m really happy with where he’s at right now. Feel comfortable if he has to go in the game, then he’ll go play.”
Kickoff for the Music City Bowl is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. ET in Nashville. The game will air on ESPN out of Nissan Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.
