By Vince Ferrara
Quarterbacks at Tennessee is today’s early summer position focus as I look at the Tennessee football team.
This is the 1st in a series of nine straight days of separate posts by position. Check my blog page daily here at SportsRadioWNML.com for the other positions.
My current projected starters are in bold. I’ve listed the average star rating entering college from the four major recruiting websites (Rivals, 247Sports, Scout and ESPN.)
Vince’s View
Quarterbacks
12 Quinten Dormady JR 6’4 216 4*
2 Jarrett Guarantano R-FR 6’4 205 4*
7 Will McBride FR 6’1 195 3*
Position summary: Sheriron Jones’ transfer leaves only three scholarship QBs. The focus for this group and the team is the quarterback competition between Dormady and Guarantano. Both are talented guys that I think will be able to offset some of Joshua Dobbs’ production. The hope is they can do that with more passing accuracy and big-plays from the pocket than with Dobbs. His escape-ability and running threat are unlikely to even be approached by either guy. Even though nothing has been declared, and won’t be until game week in my opinion, Dormady has the slight lead in the race to start. Barring a major summer improvement from Guarantano, it should remain that way.
Guarantano has great arm talent and drive to be great. The things he needs to improve on won’t come until he gets real game experience (getting rid of the ball quicker, coverage decisions, being a more vocal leader in games, etc.)
New QBs coach Mike Canales has paid-off in recruiting future QBs to the Vols already. He’s also been a positive for these two QBs. They received so much more detailed attention from a field coach than a year ago. He likes both guys, and really I do too. This position is not one of my main worries about this football team. Sure, there will be mistakes from inexperience, but I’ll take talent and the upside potential any day. If one of these guys turn out to be special, it’s a game-changer, a season-changer and a program changer. That’s why you roll with talent.
I think Butch Jones will pick a starter and play the back-up in late-game blow-out situations, if the starter’s play is really bad or because of an injury. He prefers one guy, but is willing to switch. I just don’t see him starting out with a two-QB rotation and let the game play determine the starter moving forward. If it is really close, that’s what I would do. Don’t expect that here though.
Hope you enjoyed my review of the University of Tennessee football quarterbacks as we sit here in June. Go to my blog page for the rest of the position breakdowns. I have much more to say on UT football than this. Listen for me on Sports Radio WNML, call in and let’s talk some football. Thanks for reading and sharing.
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