Tennessee’s Reset Begins With a New Tune
What to Watch for as the Vols hit play on Week 1
Tennessee Football ended the 2025 season in Music City, U.S.A. with Milestones, Missed Standards, and Motivation for 2026.
What came next was a reset. It started with the Vols’ look, as Adidas rolled out a bold new identity for Tennessee’s future. A reset to the roster would follow.
Forty new roster spots are now anchored by a few extra stars and new leadership, while a reset on defense and to the program’s conditioning has provided evidence of a new hope in Knoxville.
Tennessee’s future is, in many ways, a bet on the new. The new talent is a top-10 signing class, a sophomore drawing All-SEC buzz, and several transfers brought in to shore up a roster that, on paper, has elite firepower.
Talent and readiness aren’t the same thing in the SEC. How fast this young core comes together and matures over the next few weeks, and especially in Saturday’s opener against Furman, will likely determine whether 2026 is a rebuilding year or a surprising one for Vol Nation.
Assistant Defensive line coach Rodney Garner said last week that he has pushed a sense of urgency to those experiencing fall camp at Tennessee for the first time. The veteran assistant coach emphasized he has preached the urgency for consistency from his unit.
“The time is now. It is now.”
Rodney Garner
Defensive Line Coach
So now, here we are, from Music City to new music on the speakers inside Neyland Stadium. The heart of iconic East Tennessee will play to the tune of Tennessee football, loud and clear.
Here is what to know for the game:
Game Details
- When: Saturday, September 5, 3:30 p.m. ET
- Where: Neyland Stadium, Knoxville
- TV/Streaming: SEC Network+ / ESPN+
- Radio: Vol Network (local affiliates statewide, plus streaming via the Varsity
- Since this is on ESPN+ rather than a traditional cable channel, you’ll need an ESPN+ subscription to stream it
- If you don’t already have ESPN+, it’s also bundled inside the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle.
Sixth-year head coach Josh Heupel decided on Monday of this week to hand the opening snaps to true freshman (yes, that’s still a thing. It is not AI) Faizon Brandon, a five-star recruit out of Greensboro, North Carolina.
You have to go back to Dillon Gabriel’s freshman year at UCF in 2019 to find the last time Heupel trusted a true freshman with the keys on day one. It’s a lot to ask of an 18-year-old, but he’s not walking into the kitchen to cook with a bare cupboard.
A plethora of starters return on the offensive line; running back DeSean Bishop is coming off a 1,000-yard season, and he has two receivers on the coveted Biletnikoff Award watch list as proven targets on the outside. Tight End Ethan Davis rounds out a group that, on paper, should let a freshman quarterback play fast rather than think his way through check-downs. No game is perfect. But the offense looks set to explode in the degree-of-difficulty column.
Speaking of D.O.D., the Furman Paladins aren’t exactly just happy to be here. Furman opened its season in week zero with a 20-3 win over Division II Anderson, and while that’s not exactly a measuring stick, it did give grad transfer quarterback Jake Garcia a live look before facing an SEC defense. Jake Garcia’s résumé alone plays like a Netflix show.
He was a four-star recruit in the 2021 class who has already played for Miami, Missouri, and East Carolina before landing at Michigan and then Furman for his final season of eligibility. Not many quarterbacks in this game will have thrown passes at five different schools before finishing their career.
He has experience with being transient. In high school, his family attempted to relocate to the state of Georgia for eligibility during COVID. The decision led him to a controversial move from California to South Georgia before he finally landed at Grayson High School.
That senior season paid off for him with an appearance in the GHSA state championship game. I had the pleasure of interviewing him during that weekend in Atlanta. Now, he is here in Knoxville for another senior season. In some ways, he’s still trying to beat that COVID setback.
Head Coach Clay Hendrix is in his tenth season leading the Paladins and carries a 60-43 record into Saturday. Furman’s defense showed some life in the opener, holding Anderson to three points, though last year’s unit had real trouble stopping the run. They will have trouble trying to stop DeSean Bishop behind Tennessee’s offensive line. The Vols’ history in season openers suggests that fans can look forward to celebrating points often and early.
The current buzz around the Vols covering over 30 points bluntly reflects the resource gap, about as clearly as a point spread can. And speaking of resources, the two-QB system question will finally be answered. Will Josh Heupel pull Faizon Brandon and the rest of his starters early in the second half to avoid unnecessary risk?
Forget the scoreboard. The things worth paying attention to on Saturday.
• How Brandon looks in live bullets. Spring practice reps are one thing; getting hit by SEC-caliber pass rushers, even ones a tier below Georgia or Alabama’s front seven, is another. His pocket presence and decision-making in the first quarter will tell you more about Tennessee’s ceiling than anything from fall camp.
• Whether Furman’s front seven can slow down Bishop. If the Paladins can’t contain the run, this game gets out of hand by halftime, and Heupel will lean on his backups well before the fourth quarter.
• Garcia’s chance to audition against a Jim Knowles defensive scheme in Orange and white. A grad transfer quarterback with this much college mileage isn’t likely angling for an NFL shot off one FCS season, but a clean, competitive showing against a ranked SEC team is still worth something for a coaching staff building a resume, his own or Hendrix’s.
Whatever the final score ends up being, Saturday marks the actual start of the answer to the question some Tennessee fans have been asking all offseason: Is Faizon Brandon the guy?
Josh Heupel is 45-20 in five years in Knoxville, but this fall is genuinely a proving ground: new quarterback, new-look defense, and a brutal schedule that includes trips to Georgia Tech and a home date with Texas later this month.
You never forget your first one. Forty new members of this Tennessee football program will mark the memory of suiting up in Adidas for Week 1 with new tunes. Nothing sounds like ‘winning’ more than using this opening game to score big and honor a Tennessee legacy.
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