The general feeling entering spring practice was that redshirt freshman George MacIntyre was the favorite to win the Tennessee Vols’ starting quarterback competition.

With just a few spring practices left, that’s no longer the case.

True freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon has a legitimate chance to win this competition, based on what’s happened during spring practice.

Now, it’s important to note that this battle is far from over — a lot can, and likely will, change during the summer months and into fall camp — but it’s safe to say that the competition is currently a dead heat.

“I thought George had a slight lead going into the spring, just because he’s been in the system for a year,” said VolQuest’s Austin Price Tuesday on 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will. “I think that lead is gone. I think it’s pretty even here as we exit spring, and it’ll be a highly contested battle going into fall camp.

“Faizon’s had a solid spring. By no means has he been perfect — he’s made mistakes. He threw a pick-six last Thursday. He also came back two series later, after George had rotated in for a series in between, and threw a seed to DaSaahn Brame, who outran the secondary for a touchdown.”

Josh Heupel made a mistake last season that is impacting Tennessee’s quarterback competition

It’s easy for fans to see what’s been said about the quarterback competition this spring and surmise that MacIntyre hasn’t played well, but it’s more complex than that.

It’s not necessarily that MacIntyre isn’t playing well — at least based on the reports we’re hearing — it’s more that he’s trying to play perfect without making mistakes, instead of just playing free and with confidence (which is similar to what Hendon Hooker experienced during the 2021 quarterback battle at UT).

MacIntyre has a year of experience in Josh Heupel’s system, but this is the first time the young quarterback is taking consequential snaps. Throw in the pressure that comes from being the perceived “favorite” and it’s easy to see why MacIntyre hasn’t been at his best so far this spring (that can change at anytime, though).

The reason MacIntyre doesn’t have more experience is because he operated as the No. 3 quarterback for the Vols last season, despite it being well known that backup quarterback Jake Merklinger was almost certainly hitting the portal after the season (Merklinger ended up transferring to UConn).

It would’ve been more beneficial for the Vols if MacIntyre had received those reps last season. MacIntyre also probably should’ve played some snaps early against Illinois in the Music City Bowl (I wrote at the time that it was a mistake that Heupel didn’t play MacIntyre against Illinois).

“It’s not like George had a bunch of reps with the ones,” said Price Tuesday. “And [he had] very little reps with the twos. And that, to me, is probably a failure of last year — where they gave too much time to Merklinger with the twos, instead of giving it to George to get him ready. Because they knew Merklinger wasn’t coming back. And I think if you had to do it over again, you would change that. Either way, nobody’s won this job, nobody’s lost this job. But both guys need to approach the next three or four months the right kind of way and continue to work and improve.”

There’s nothing Heupel can do now about the way reps were distributed last season — what’s done is done. But that’s something Heupel and his staff should consider moving forward. There’s no substitute for reps with the ones and twos or non-garbage time game reps — especially for quarterbacks.

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