The Tennessee Vols will kick off the 2026 season on September 5 in Knoxville against Furman.

But we don’t know who will be under center when the Vols’ offense takes the field for its first drive of the season.

Redshirt freshman George MacIntyre and true freshman Faizon Brandon are battling for the starting job. Brandon has some momentum in the battle heading into the summer months, but he’s not necessarily the “leader” at this point.

“Both of those guys are competing,” said VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs earlier this month. “I think Faizon’s focus has been really good for a young player, which is not surprising, given his personality and the fact that he believes he can win the job… That doesn’t mean George has done bad things. George has done well, too. Both of those guys are working out, and both of those guys are going to compete all summer long.”

Vols insider shares the expected timeline for a decision in Tennessee’s starting quarterback battle

Hubbs joined 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will on Friday for his weekly visit and shared some insight on when Josh Heupel will likely name a starting quarterback.

“There are two scrimmages (during fall camp), so it gives [Heupel] a chance to make sure somebody’s not a one-hit wonder in the [first] scrimmage,” explained Hubbs. “Or that something wasn’t necessarily tailor-made (for one quarterback). Coaches can manipulate a scrimmage to make it look however they want to look. So [coaches want to] make sure they’re not tailor-making something for one particular guy.

“One bad day doesn’t necessarily mean you lose it, and one good day doesn’t necessarily mean you win it. You’re looking for some consistency, but when you come out of that second scrimmage in the Josh Heupel preseason calendar, you move into a mock game week the next week. And when you go into a mock game week and you’re going through all of the routines of what Monday through Friday should look like to get ready to play on Saturday, Heupel would like for everybody to know who his quarterback is in order to go through the mock game week. And so that’s kind of always been his timeline for naming a starter. I mean, he can name it at a different time, but that’s when he has done it throughout his career. And it’s in conjunction with the mock game week and after you get two scrimmages to really show yourself. So that’s kind of the reasoning behind the [timeline] for Josh Heupel.”

Heupel may wake up tomorrow and decide to name a starter, but based on how he’s handled quarterback competitions previously in his career, it sounds like it’ll be sometime in the middle of August before we officially learn who Tennessee’s starter will be this fall.