Former Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray will be in the booth in Fayetteville this weekend for the SEC Network’s broadcast of Tennessee vs Arkansas.

Murray joined The Mike Keith Show on Wednesday to preview the game, and he had a message for Vols freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon.

Brandon, of course, was benched last week in the second quarter of Tennessee’s 24-14 win over Auburn. The North Carolina native looked a little overwhelmed in his first SEC games against Texas and Auburn, and he’s also dealing with a shoulder injury, so head coach Josh Heupel made the wise decision to sit Brandon and put sophomore George MacIntyre into the game.

On3 reported earlier this week that MacIntyre will start against Arkansas. Brandon, meanwhile, was listed on the SEC availability report on Wednesday as questionable.

“Obviously, we don’t 100 percent know what the deal is going to be this weekend — we’ll talk to the coaching staff on Friday to get the entire scoop — but obviously he’s a very talented kid,” said Murray. “I was very excited watching him throughout the beginning of this season. But there’s going to be some ups and downs.

“I played as a redshirt freshman, and my redshirt freshman season we went 6-7. That was the only time Coach Mark Richt had a losing season as a head football coach at the University of Georgia. I’m the starting quarterback, and it was a losing football season at UGA. There were a lot of downs that season. … So, what did we do from there? Well, we went 10-2 and went to two SEC championship games the next two seasons. You’re going to have those moments. You’ve got to grow from them as a young quarterback, and hopefully he’s able to lean on his coach to do that.”

“The worry with a coaching staff is always: did we put him out there too soon?” added Murray. “Did we not set him up for success? I don’t know Faizon or his personality or where he is mentally, but at times there’s nothing wrong with sitting back, learning from someone in the offense, and watching how they operate the offense.

“I just think the big concern now is you don’t want a guy that is just dwelling about some of the bad mistakes that he’s made over the past two weeks. You have to help him push past that, get him back out there, and hopefully have some success at some point this season.”

I think that’s great advice from Murray.

Brandon can’t dwell on the mistakes or the missed opportunities from the last two weeks. It happened — you can’t change it now. Brandon just needs to learn from what went wrong, remember that he’s as talented as any quarterback in the country, and go play his game. He hasn’t made his last mistake, and he hasn’t had his last rough game — that’s just the reality of competing. It’s never going to be perfect. All Brandon needs to do, though, is trust his abilities and his preparation and go try to win one rep at a time.