Tennessee earned a hard-fought 22-7 win over Texas A&M on Saturday in College Station.

And the Vols did it by playing two quarterbacks.

Sophomore George MacIntyre made his fifth straight start at quarterback for the Volunteers, but he suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Faizon Brandon in the second half.

MacIntyre played some snaps after suffering the injury, so the belief is that it’s not anything serious.

Still, it was Brandon, in his first significant action since the Auburn game earlier in October, who finished the game for Tennessee. And since he was the starter for the first five games of the season, it does bring up the question of whether or not he’ll get the nod against LSU next Saturday.

Former Tennessee quarterback Jonathan Crompton, however, says it’s clear that MacIntyre should be the starter against LSU.

But only if he’s healthy enough — which is something that Vols head coach Josh Heupel likely won’t give a straight answer to this upcoming week.

“If G Mac is healthy, then GMac is the starter, and it’s status quo,” said Crompton on the A to Z Sports Vols postgame show. “If he’s not healthy enough, then it’s ride with Faizon. But I don’t think we’ll know until Saturday. I really don’t.”

“I do think GMac starts, because if [the injury] was worse than it is, he wouldn’t have been standing there with his helmet on on the sideline. They braced it up. You could tell that if Heupel was like, ‘Hey big dog, you’re going in,’ then he was ready to go in. I do think that that Heupel was smart by basically going, ‘We can protect you because we have the lead. We’re going to run the ball every play. So why put you in harm’s way?’ That’s what I think. I could be wrong, but I just don’t see it going any differently than that.”

While Crompton thinks MacIntyre needs to be the guy against LSU (again, if healthy), he also wants to see the Faizon Brandon package continue to grow.

“That Faizon package needs to grow each week because it puts so much pressure on the opposing defense — because you have to game plan for two different styles of quarterbacks.”

MacIntyre wasn’t perfect against Texas A&M — he took a couple of sacks that could’ve been avoided and he didn’t let it rip a few times when he had opportunities down the field — but he was efficient early in the game (he completed 13-of-17 passes for 109 yards).

Brandon did what the Vols asked him to do — and I’m still very high on Brandon as a quarterback (he’s oozing with talent) — but it’s not like he did anything spectacular against the Aggies (he wasn’t asked to do much, to be fair). So I think Crompton is right that it should be MacIntyre against LSU because he’s been the Vols’ guy for the last five games, and he hasn’t done anything to lose the job.

The best part of all of this is that Brandon, who is clearly going to continue to see snaps even if MacIntyre continues to start, received some important in-game experience against the Aggies, which will make him even more comfortable if he’s called upon over the final two weeks of the regular season (or in the playoff, if the Vols make it). That in-game experience is invaluable for a young quarterback.

Additionally, this gives Heupel another opportunity to be extremely vague this week about his quarterback plan before playing Lane Kiffin and LSU next Saturday in Knoxville.

I wouldn’t expect Heupel to tip his hand any this week — even if it’s clear that MacIntyre should be the guy.