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CFB analyst slams Tennessee’s offseason QB change: ‘You’re going down a level’
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Tennessee has had a busy spring transfer portal window as it replaced Nico Iamaleava with Joey Aguilar for the 2025 season.
While some have heralded Josh Heupel and the Vols for how they handled the Iamaleava fiasco, not everyone is quite as impressed. During an appearance on CBS Sports HQ on Tuesday, Gerald “Smoke” Dixon had some strong words for where he thinks the Vols are headed.
“You’re running right back into the way Jeremy Pruitt left, in my opinion, when you don’t have a quarterback that can get you to 10 wins,” Dixon said. “We’re talking about the team that just lost to the National Champions in the Playoffs. So you’re going down a level, down a step, in terms of quarterback play.”
Here’s a clip from Dixon’s appearance:
Dixon is a former Alabama defensive back who also spent time in player personnel roles at Vanderbilt and Maryland in recent years.
Vegas seems to agree with Dixon’s assessment that this Tennessee team won’t win 10 game. BetMGM has the Vols’ win total set at 8.5 as of Tuesday evening. However, 8 or 9 wins would still be an improvement over the end of the Pruitt era when the Vols went just 3-7 in 2020.
Heupel is entering his 5th season as the Vols’ head coach. Tennessee hasn’t won fewer than 7 games in any of Heupel’s years at the helm and they’ve won an average of 10 games over the past 3 campaigns.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
