Tennessee football will have a new starting quarterback next season. The Vols have three options to replace the departing Joey Aguilar: true freshman Faizon Brandon, redshirt-freshman George MacIntyre and Colorado transfer Ryan Staub.
Heading into the summer, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel was adamant that the fight for the job would continue into fall camp. He wanted to see how the group responded to spring ball and applied it to the preseason.
During the recent episode of The RTI Low-Down, college sports insider Chris Low gave his updated thoughts on the competition.
“Had a chance to talk with some of the guys, some of the coaches this week over there on campus,” Low said. “I know there’s a lot of attention on the quarterback. Is it going to be Brandon? Is it going to be George MacIntyre? I think Brandon is the guy unless he does not play well in preseason. If he just has a bad camp or if MacIntyre just plays lights out.
“I think coming out of the spring, the way I would put it is Brandon has positioned himself nicely to be the starter. He still has to go lock it down. You can’t fool the players. Let’s remember, Josh Heupel played quarterback. He understands the importance of the players around the quarterback buying into that guy. They know who is the best guy, the guy who gives them the best chance to win.
“Yes, he’s a freshman, but as Josh Heupel has now told me a number of times, he played a true freshman the entire season with Dillon Gabriel at UCF. So he is not not going to play Faizon Brandon simply because he’s a true freshman if he’s the best guy. That’s still to be determined.”
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Brandon joins the team as a five-star freshman and one of the highest-ranked players in the 2026 recruiting class. 247 considered him the top player in the class for the majority of the cycle, but dropped him to No. 2 by the end. Still, he’s projected to be an elite prospect with the chance to parlay it into an NFL career.
MacIntyre was a four-star recruit out of high school and served as Tennessee’s third-string quarterback last season. He was behind Aguilar and Jake Merklinger, who has since transferred to UConn. As a true freshman, MacIntyre completed 7-of-9 pass attempts for 69 yards.
Staub played in four games last year with Colorado. He completed 30-of-55 passes for 427 yards, three touchdowns and four interceptions.
