Tennessee is an interesting spot with its quarterback situation right now.

Sophomore George MacIntyre is the Vols’ best option to start games right now.

And he might be the best option in 2027, too.

But we can’t say that for sure just yet.

The Vols also have true freshman Faizon Brandon, who looked a little overwhelmed in his first SEC action before suffering a shoulder injury that pushed him to the sidelines in favor of MacIntyre.

Tennessee hasn’t seen the best of Brandon yet, and they may not before the end of the season.

If MacIntyre continues to play well, and if the Vols keep winning, then Brandon likely won’t receive another opportunity this season.

It puts Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel in a weird spot. He has to play the quarterback that gives the Vols the best chance to win right now. But he also needs to see what he has in Brandon because there will almost certainly be other programs in the young quarterback’s DMs in December (if not sooner).

VolQuest’s Austin Price says that ultimately, Heupel can’t worry about losing Brandon (or MacIntyre) — he just has to do whatever needs to be done to win games.

“I think you just have to worry about next week against Kentucky and the following week against Texas A&M and so on and so forth,” said Price on WNML’s Josh and Swain. “If that means [Brandon] gets two series a game to run packages, or does it mean he gets the ball down inside the 30 to run a little RPO stuff? Whatever it takes to win. And if that means no Faizon at all, then I don’t think you worry about kids leaving in this era. You just go find somebody else. And that goes for George, too. It goes for all of them. I don’t think you can get caught up in the whole, ‘Well, we’ve got to worry about next year with Faizon.’

“At the end of the day, if you’re getting paid well, you either want to be here or you don’t. And so I think for Josh Heupel across the board at all positions, you just have to worry about figuring out a way to win by one point. It doesn’t matter — just find a way to win. Tennessee almost had that done last week and then obviously the last two series happened. So just find a way to win. If that means Faizon gets a package where he can run a little RPO game to throw something else at the defense, fine. If not, then just coach George up the best you can and let it roll.”

It’s a great point by Price. If a coach gets caught up right now in what the roster looks like next season, then he’s probably not going to make the best decisions for the team this season (that’s what general managers and player personnel staffers are for).

For now, it’s clear that MacIntyre gives Tennessee the best chance to win. If that suddenly changes, then maybe Brandon gets another chance. But as long as the Vols are winning — and the quarterback did enough to beat South Carolina — then Heupel can’t make a quarterback change just to make a change.