By the end of the month, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle will have learned a lot about their top two quarterbacks — redshirt freshman George MacIntyre and true freshman Faizon Brandon.

Fall camp will be over by the end of the month, and the Vols will have likely named a starter for the season opener against Furman. Heupel and Halzle will have a good feeling about which player is the best option for Tennessee this fall.

One thing that Heupel and Halzle don’t know is how either quarterback will perform under the lights. Within that, they don’t know how either quarterback will react to getting laid out by a defender for the first time at the collegiate level.

What Heupel and Halzle, however, do know is that early-season opponents — Georgia Tech, Texas, and Auburn — are going to bring pressure to try to rattle whichever young quarterback is in the game. And the response of MacIntyre or Brandon — whichever happens to be playing — will reveal a lot.

Neither George MacIntyre nor Faizon Brandon have ever taken a real hit at the college level

Neither MacIntyre nor Brandon have ever taken a real hit at the college level. But it’s eventually going to happen — and it’ll probably happen fairly early in the season. A defender is going to lay out one of Tennessee’s young quarterbacks to the point where it takes a moment to get up.

“Let me tell you what both the head coach and offensive coordinator at Tennessee know,” said former Vols assistant coach Doug Matthews on 104.5 The Zone. “You take away the Furman and Kennesaw State games, [then it’s] Georgia Tech, Texas, and Auburn. Games two, four, and five — the defensive coordinators of those teams know that they will be playing against either a redshirt freshman, who has thrown [nine] passes, or a true freshman who has not been hit since graduating from high school. One of those two guys, or both, are going to play. One of those two guys is going to start the ball game.

“What would you do if you were a defensive coordinator calling plays against these two? And I’m talking about Georgia Tech, Texas, and Auburn in particular. You’re going to bring as much pressure as you possibly can. You’re going to see exactly what both of these young men can handle. They haven’t been hit. Even going back to MacIntyre, he only threw [nine] passes last year. These guys have never been hit since they’ve stepped foot on campus at the University of Tennessee. What’s going to happen when one or both of these guys get lit up? What’s going to happen when both of these guys get really physically hit where you’ve got to lay on the ground a minute to make sure all of your parts are still working together? That’s going to happen.”

It’s a good point from Matthews. Teams are absolutely going to try to rattle whichever young quarterback is on the field — especially early in the season. And no one knows how either player will respond. I mean, we’ve seen quarterbacks get laid out and never be the same again. And we’ve seen some quarterbacks get laid out and turn into superheroes — LSU quarterback Joe Burrow against UCF in the Fiesta Bowl for example (oddly enough, Heupel was UCF’s head coach at the time). Burrow got lit up after an interception and then proceeded to shred UCF for 394 yards and four touchdowns. I’d say he responded to getting laid out quite well, but that’s not the response of every quarterback.

We’ll see what happens when that inevitable big hit comes. Everyone will be anticipating the response.

The good news from an X’s and O’s standpoint, though, is that Tennessee’s strong run game — which reportedly showed up in the Vols’ first fall scrimmage — will help mitigate the pressure.

“Heupel and Halzle both know that in those ball games they’re going to get a lot of pressure,” said Matthews. “So how do you handle that? You put them in as many of those situations as you possibly can. And what gives pressure teams problems? When I was a defensive coordinator calling defenses, the one thing that I did not want to see was a strong running attack. And with this (Tennessee) team, offensively, that is really the backbone and the foundation of this offense — running the football.

“So if you want to bring six, seven, or eight guys, go ahead. You know what happens if one of our running backs slips through? You’ve got a big play. When I was coaching offense with guys like Reggie Cobb and Chuck Webb, we wanted you to blitz. Because you may hit us in the backfield every now and then and get a stop, but if you miss a tackle or you break a tackle, or you don’t get somebody in the right gap, you’ve got a big play.”

All it’ll take is a couple of big run plays, and the quarterback showing they can handle a big hit, for defensive coordinators to do a 180 on how they’re defending Tennessee early in the season.