In the heart of the Tennessee spotlight, ‘Gunslinger’ Joey Aguilar discounted no more   

Joey Aguilar has always been one of the best players on the football field throughout his journey in the sport. The same could be said for most players in the Southeastern Conference as well, but Aguilar’s trek to Knoxville to become Tennessee’s starting quarterback was anything but conventional.

As we know, that football journey took Aguilar from Liberty High School to Freedom High School, to Diablo Valley Community College to Appalachian State. Most recently in the past eight months, that journey has also included trips to UCLA and now a stop in Tennessee.  

Despite the many transitions, the foundation of high-level talent has always been evident.

“When I saw him just throwing in shorts, my mind was blown that he didn’t have a bunch of schools all over him. He was really just an under the radar guy at the JUCO level,” Danny Hernandez of Los Angeles Dimes told Volquest, who works with Aguilar as his personal trainer and quarterback coach. “I’ve trained a lot of really good kids throughout the years. I had never seen him and told him ‘Joey, you throw just as good as these guys and you even have better size than some of these guys that I’ve seen be able to have a ton of success (with).’”

Hernandez has been working with Aguilar since the offseason before the 2022 campaign, his final season at the junior college level. Before that, the quarterback dominated the scene for Freedom High School, amassing 5,575 yards and 59 touchdowns as a junior and senior.

“He was great. His quarterback IQ was huge. He’s very coachable,” Kevin Hartwig, Aguilar’s high school head coach explained to Volquest. “He came into our system where the year before, we threw the crud out of the ball. It was nice because we just kind of kept it going with him and we got even a little bit better. He was a little bit more mobile than the guy we had the year before.”

With a senior season consisting of 32 touchdown passes and 3,074 yards, one would think big-time college programs would be after the standout from Northern California. That wasn’t the case, however, and there’s two pretty clear reasons why.  

“I think he was a little bit of a late bloomer physically. That was one thing,” Hernandez said. “And then two, he really wasn’t out there on the camp circuit all that much. His whole high school career was – on one hand you could count how many camps he actually attended.”

While in junior college, Aguilar admitted he never saw himself playing big-time college football. Still, he kept his head down and went to work, perfecting his craft and getting better each time out.

“He’s got a hose (arm), but he tightened that hose up. He did a real good job for DVC,” Hartwig said. “I’m a big believer things happen for a reason. I’m excited for him.”

Still not getting many looks from Power Four programs while in JUCO, a chance encounter changed the game for Aguilar.

Frank Ponce, the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator for Miami (FL) at the time, was on the west coast recruiting former five-star quarterback Jaden Rashada. At the urging of Hernandez, Ponce made the stop and checked in on Aguilar. He was not disappointed.

“He calls me right away and he says, ‘Danny, how has this kid not been offered by everybody in the country? He throws a beautiful ball. He did everything that I asked him to do. He moves well. He checked so many boxes,’” the trainer recalled.

Ponce ended up taking the offensive coordinator job at Appalachian State and brought Aguilar with him. The quarterback made him right by becoming the Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year in 2023, breaking a plethora of single-season program records along the way as a rookie. And through it all, Aguilar stayed true to his game.

“I think just his ability to be fearless. When you’re fearless, it allows you to be decisive, right? And it’s like, you’re going to live or die with that decision that you end up making,” Hernandez said of what sets Aguilar apart. “He has a lot of Brett Favre in him, so he’s going to go out there and be that gunslinger.

“We talk about it from time to time, right? Like, what’s your definition of open? Sometimes, that’s a little different from one quarterback to another, so he has that confidence that I could fit that in there and he’s going to make some big plays with that. So, I think that’s part of his superpower for sure.”

Throughout his time at Appalachian State, Aguilar broke six different single-season records and registered 7,212 yards of total offense across 25 games. He ended his two-year stint with the Mountaineers ranking fifth in both program touchdown passes (56) and yards (6,760), starting all but his first game of the tenure.

Aguilar enters the 2025 campaign as the FBS active career leader in total offense per game (288.5 yards) and is second in career passing yards per game (270.4 yards).

“He’s grown a ton in the overall understanding of the game. I think he’s played in some big games and played at a high level,” Hernandez said. “I think he’s going to be able to do really well (with Tennessee). You have some really good people around him over there, just learning the position and all the little details. This is the most coaching that he’s ever had. He’s going to be coached up tremendously, and with his skillset that he has, I expect him to put up some big-time numbers.”

Hernandez has made a career working with some of the top quarterback prospects in the country. The list of highly-touted recruits turned college stars (and some who reached the NFL) include Bryce Young, DJ Uigalalei, Caleb Williams, Maalik Murphy, Julian Sayin and many more.

Could Aguilar be another name added to this list? Tennessee fans would love it, but at the very least, the Vols are getting a quarterback with a diverse skillset and one who allows play-callers to ‘let it rip.’

“He allowed us to expand our offense because we kind of got into some of that stuff – the RPOs or the jewelry type plays. Joey was able to handle it,” Hartwig concluded. “So, it was kind of fun and made me a better coach because he was that type of guy that allowed you to kind of expand and go do more things.”

Tennessee will try and ‘let it rip’ offensively in the season-opener Saturday in Atlanta versus Syracuse with a brand new starting quarterback.