Former Tennessee QB is reportedly the favorite to start for Butch Jones at Arkansas State in 2023
In one of the stranger coincidences of the offseason, a former Tennessee Vols quarterback appears poised to start for former UT head coach Butch Jones this fall. Jones is entering his third season as the head coach at Arkansas State. He took the job with the Red Wolves after working as an off-field assistant at […]
In one of the stranger coincidences of the offseason, a former Tennessee Vols quarterback appears poised to start for former UT head coach Butch Jones this fall.
Jones is entering his third season as the head coach at Arkansas State. He took the job with the Red Wolves after working as an off-field assistant at Alabama for three seasons.
Earlier this offseason, former Vols quarterback JT Shrout announced that he was transferring from Colorado to Arkansas State. Shrout originally transferred from Tennessee to Colorado after the 2020 season.
According to The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Shrout is viewed as the favorite to start Arkansas State's season-opener against the Oklahoma Sooners on September 2 in Norman.
From The Arkansas Democrat Gazette (August 21): While Coach Butch Jones remains non-committal as to who will start at quarterback on the road against Oklahoma in the season opener, it appears the job is Colorado transfer J.T. Shrout's to lose. As the lone upperclassman at the position, Shrout has shown his leadership ability and has been the most accurate out of the quarterbacks.
Shrout played in nine games last season at Colorado and threw for 1,220 yards and seven touchdowns. With that experience under his belt, the Red Wolves are unlikely to hand the keys to a freshman instead of Shrout on Sept. 2 in a hostile environment at Oklahoma.
Shrout never played for Jones at Tennessee as he signed with the Vols in late 2017 — a month after Jones was fired.
(Jones didn't recruit Shrout, either. The new coaching staff that was hired to replace Jones, including then UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt and former Vols offensive coordinator Tyson Helton, recruited Shrout to Tennessee.)
Shrout was one of the players that was "forced" to find a new home after Colorado hired Deion Sanders as their new head coach earlier this offseason.
"I was coming from a situation where you were pretty much getting forced into a portal situation of finding a place, then having the opportunity to come here and come play right away was super exciting,” said Shrout earlier this month.
Shrout, a former three-star recruit, passed for 1,220 yards, seven touchdowns, and eight interceptions in nine games at Colorado last season.
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