Tennessee Vols true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon will have a legitimate chance to win the starting quarterback job on Rocky Top this spring/fall.

Although many view redshirt freshman quarterback George MacIntyre as the favorite to win the job, Vols head coach Josh Heupel made it clear this week, via an interview with On3, that Tennessee’s quarterback competition is “real”.

VolQuest’s Austin Price also pointed out this week during an appearance on 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will that it’s “truly” an open competition.

“It’s truly an open competition,” said Price. “The people that have just handed this thing to George, similar to the people that handed it to (Jake) Merklinger last April…this thing is going to be an open competition.

“Now, does George have the inside track? Yeah, because he has time on task in the system, so he has to take advantage of that. This spring is big for George. George needs to leave spring with a similar, I won’t say lead, but [a similar type of] inside track to the job. If Faizon mentally picks it up, then things get a little tighter. And it really will be a coin flip come August. But this is an open competition.”

Could Faizon Brandon still see the field even if he doesn’t win the starting job?

ESPN’s Craig Haubert and Billy Tucker suggested this week that Brandon, a former five-star recruit, could see the field via special packages even if he doesn’t win the starting job.

“Brandon blends arm strength with good accuracy and nice touch on his deep ball,” noted Haubert and Tucker. “Tennessee has more experienced options, but Brandon is someone to watch and could ultimately work his way into packages even if he doesn’t win the starting job.”

We haven’t seen Heupel use multiple quarterbacks during his time at Tennessee.

A big reason for that is because of Heupel’s past experience in a two quarterback system.

Last summer, during an interview with 104.5 The Zone’s 3HL at SEC Media Days, Heupel pointed to his experience at Snow College in 1998, where he split reps with Fred Salanoa, as a reason why he isn’t a big fan of playing multiple quarterbacks.

“I did that as a JUCO quarterback,” said Heupel. “I think it’s hard. We divided halves. It was a unique situation. A guy (Salanoa) that had left didn’t qualify, or didn’t get his last class, and came back. He was a good player. I’m still great friends with him, and we both had an opportunity to move on and go play at a high college level, too.

“If you’re going to try to trade them in play in and play out, or [by] quarters, that’s tough to manage. We want somebody to be the starter. We’re going to find out who that is. And there’s no set timetable. I don’t think you can do that. You can’t handcuff yourself. They’ve got to go earn it. And so we’ll go through that.” 

Now, while Heupel almost certainly won’t rotate series between MacIntyre and Brandon, it’s possible he could use Brandon in short-yardage situations — kind of like Urban Meyer did with Tim Tebow in 2006 at Florida.

Brandon, after all, is already a more physical player than MacIntyre. Maybe we see some situations where Heupel uses Brandon on a quarterback sneak on 4th-and-1 instead of MacIntyre. It’s not an approach we’ve seen from Heupel before — but we also haven’t seen Heupel with this exact personnel at quarterback during his time as the head coach at Tennessee.

Heupel will certainly have plenty of options to explore this spring and fall.

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