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If you have been holding your breath and waiting for Jeremy Pruitt to announce Tennessee’s starting quarterback for the week 1 matchup against West Virginia, go ahead and breathe.
You may not know who the Vols’ starter will be until the end of the season opener.
In an interview on Saturday with Voice of the Vols Bob Kesling, Pruitt continued to hold back on determining a starter, saying they “may play both” against West Virginia.
“To me, it’s hard enough to get one quarterback,” said Pruitt, “If you can get one quarterback, that’s great. If you can have two or three, you need to give them an opportunity.”
The two candidates to start for Tennessee are redshirt sophomore Jarett Guarantano and grad transfer Keller Chryst, who came to Knoxville from Stanford to play out his final year of eligibility. Behind Guarantano and Chryst are sophomore Will McBride and incoming freshman and former 3-star JT Shrout.
Pruitt did not provide any certainty about how many quarterbacks he will play next Saturday, but emphasized that he wants to get whoever starts the game on the bench some reps.
“I think it’s going to be important for us, whoever our quarterback is, that we need to play the number-two guy. You look at it all across the United States every year: People get hurt at quarterback, so you want the next guy to have some game experience.”
The feeling from a lot of media in Tennessee’s preseason camp is that Guarantano has the edge over Chryst, but it is clear Pruitt wants to give all his signal-callers an opportunity to take over this team.
“I think all four of our quarterbacks have the ability to make some plays with their arms. Some are probably a little more mobile than others, which helps extending plays,” said Pruitt.
Tennessee’s offense averaged 19.8 points per game in an abysmal 4-8 season last fall, but is going up against a Mountaineer defense that let up 31.5 points per game in 2017.
This is going to be a completely different Tennessee offense with offensive coordinator Tyson Helton now in charge, but don’t be surprised if Pruitt and his staff don’t publicly determine a starter at quarterback until right before kickoff, and even then the battle might rage deeper into the regular season.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Lucas is a digital reporter for 104.5 The Zone in Nashville, and a high school play-by-play broadcaster. Lucas has been covering SEC football for Saturday Down South since 2018.
