ESPN analyst who doubted George MacIntyre has a different take on the Tennessee QB after the Vols’ win over Alabama
Tennessee Volunteers quarterback George MacIntyre is now 2-0 as a starter in the SEC.
ESPN’s Dan Wetzel picked Alabama to beat Tennessee last weekend in part because of Vols quarterback George MacIntyre.
Wetzel didn’t feel like the Volunteers’ offense would be able to score enough points with MacIntyre at quarterback.
“I’m interested to see the Alabama defense,” said Wetzel. “Tennessee’s offense didn’t do much of anything against the Texas defense. How close is Alabama’s defense to the Texas defense? I think it’s not far from it.
“I just think Alabama’s got too much. There’s too many questions for Tennessee. They have a very good defense, and I don’t expect Alabama to score a ton of points in this game, which is why that point spread may be interesting. But I think they have enough to pull this one out, particularly if it’s going to be (Tennessee QB) George MacIntyre the entire game.”
Wetzel certainly wasn’t disrespecting Tennessee — those were fair concerns based on what we’ve seen from the Vols’ offense the last few weeks.
Tennessee’s offense, however, was able to put more than enough points on the board — 26 to be exact — to beat an Alabama team that only managed 10 points against Jim Knowles’ defense.
A big reason why the Vols scored 26 points was because MacIntyre played smart football, took what the defense gave him, and made some big plays on the move.
Wetzel said on the College GameDay podcast on Sunday that he was impressed by how MacIntyre played against Alabama.
“George MacIntyre played incredible,” said Wetzel. “If you go back and listen, we were like, ‘Hey, Tennessee’s defense is really good.’ But I had no faith in who was going to play quarterback. That was the whole thing (with picking Alabama). But MacIntyre played terrific.”
We’ve said it a ton this season, but it’s still true: MacIntyre is in the early stages of his development as a quarterback. He hasn’t been perfect in his 10 quarters of SEC action this season, but he’s played winning football. And more importantly, he’s growing each week as a quarterback.
MacIntyre will make more mistakes this season, but I think we’re going to continue to see him get better as he gains important experience.
