Josh Heupel describes how his approach to quarterback changes with an open competition

Tennessee Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel had to pivot quickly this offseason at the quarterback position with the transfer of Nico Iamaleava. That forced the Volunteers to enter Fall Camp with an open competition at quarterback.

Now, with practice finally underway, Heupel opened up about his approach. In particular, how that approach changes when the team does have this open competition to become the next starting quarterback at Tennessee.

“No. We’ll make sure all those guys get a crack at it,” Heupel said. “And you try to balance your scheme of what you’ve installed for the day with all of your groups, certainly your quarterbacks as well, and get them exposed to everything. There’s a flow to it, subtly.”

Quickly following the transfer of Iamaleava, Heupel turned to the portal and brought in Joey Aguilar as an experienced option. Ironically, he came from UCLA, pushed out by Iamaleava transferring there. However, he’s not being given the job in Knoxville without winning it.

Alongside Aguilar, Tennessee has a total of four quarterbacks on its online roster. Redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger is considered a threat to Aguilar in the competition. The former four-star recruit did, notably, play well during the spring. There’s also freshman George MacIntyre, who came to Tennessee as a four-star recruit in the Class of 2025.

“Yeah, you may tweak it where you end up with a little bit more team,” Heupel said. “But some of that happens during the course of training camp. You pre-plan it and then, depending on where you’re at as a football team, those things can suddenly change to try and make sure that they get exposed to all the situational football that we need here at training camp is an emphasis, too.”

Joey Halzle opens up on what he needs to see from the Tennessee starter

There are a few things Tennessee is going to need from its starting quarterback. That starts, according to offensive coordinator Joey Halzle, by being able to operate the offense well.

“First and foremost, you’ve got to play this game in this offense with an aggressive nature. I think a lot of times, the mistake quarterbacks make in a competition is they try not to lose it. They try just not to make a mistake. We want out guy to walk the line between being extremely aggressive but not reckless at all. Reckless is just throwing a ball up for grabs. Aggressive is driving a ball into a tight window. So, we want our guy to be aggressive, we want him to be smart, and we want him to operate this offense,” Halzle said.

“It’s not just about who throws the ball the furthest or the hardest. It’s about who can operate this offense that when we take the field, he gives us a chance to win. Whether that’s them carrying the football, them getting to their check downs and then making big plays down the field. However it presents to that individual’s skill set, it’s them doing that at an extremely high level to where we say that’s the guy that gives us the best chance to be up plus-1 at the end of a ballgame.”

At SEC Media Days, Heupel shared that he would like to have a starting quarterback named sooner rather than later. Of course, before he can do that, someone needs to earn the job.