It’s going to be the talk of the fall.
Just a few months ago, a quarterback competition wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card in Knoxville. Following the bizarre departure of Nico Iamaleava though, that’s just what Josh Heupel has on his hands heading into fall camp.
Tennessee quickly jumped in the transfer portal to grab Joey Aguilar, executing a trade of sorts with UCLA to round out the quarterback room. Aguilar entered the mix back in May with hopes of getting up to speed in the offense ahead of fall camp. With that start date quickly approaching, it’s nearly time for Aguilar to show where he’s at during the first few official practices in a team setting.
As expected on Tuesday at SEC media days, Josh Heupel confirmed that a three-man competition for the starting quarterback job will play out over the next several weeks.
“We will have a competition at the quarterback position, three guys inside of that room — really proud of what they’ve done — Joey, since he got there in May, Merklinger and George MacIntyre, what those three guys have done since they’ve been on campus. They’ve taken the summer, developed relationships, rapport with the guys around them, their ability to compete in a positive way with each other in the meeting room and on the field, their ability to have leadership traits and to continue to grow in that.”
Merklinger holds the advantage in the experience of the offense category, entering year two in the system. Joey Aguilar holds the playing time advantage with two seasons of starting experience under his belt at Appalachian State. And then there’s the true freshman wildcard — George MacIntyre — who may be the most physically talented of them all.
“We’ve found a way to win with a lot of different quarterbacks throughout my career on the offensive side of the ball, and we’re going to find a way to win with the guy that earns a starting spot as we go through training camp here in August,” Heupel stated.
Though it’s still an open competition, it would still be an upset if Joey Aguilar wasn’t the guy when Tennessee takes the field in August. The 6-3, 225 pound senior has thrown 56 touchdowns over the last two seasons for Appalachian State, throwing for over 6,700 yards. He brings athleticism to the table as well, running for over 200 yards in each of his two seasons as a starter.
“The addition of Joey to who’s already inside of that group, highly competitive guys that are smart, that have the physical traits to be successful,” Heupel said. “Teammates have grown to have great trust in those guys through the course of this off-season during the summer, and now it’s about getting to training camp and going and competing. Somebody is going to earn the opportunity to be our starting quarterback through that process.”
The knock on Aguilar comes in the turnover department. 24 interceptions — ten in 2023 and 14 in 2024 — puts a bit of a black eye on the stat line. That’s something that will obviously have to be cleaned up, and perhaps Tennessee’s simplified-read offense can remedy that.
All quarterbacks will be working with new faces at wide receiver, which might help Aguilar’s chances a bit. Tennessee will open fall camp in just a couple weeks and continuing to grow those relationships will go a long way in determining a winner in this battle.
For Heupel, he’ll know who the guy is when he sees it.
“Through the course of training camp, we don’t have a set timeline on when we want to announce somebody as our starter,” Heupel said. “Once somebody earns that opportunity, then they’ll be named that guy.”