Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel didn’t reveal his quarterback plans for this weekend’s matchup against Arkansas, but he did confirm something on Monday that we’ve suspected for a while about the Vols’ quarterback room.

Early in fall camp, we pointed out that freshman Faizon Brandon and sophomore George MacIntyre have a much different relationship than the one we saw between Hendon Hooker and Joe Milton a few years ago.

Hooker and Milton were “besties.” The two players often hung out together away from the field (they lived together at one point). They made no secret of their close friendship.

We noted in early August that there seems to be a “healthy tension” between Brandon and MacIntyre.

The two quarterbacks are good teammates, but they don’t seem like they’re very close away from the field.

“It’s definitely very competitive between us two,” said Brandon before the season when asked about his relationship with MacIntyre. “There’s some things he can learn from me and I can learn from him. I take stuff from him and Ryan (Staub) all the time to apply it to my game because they do some great stuff, too. We talk in the facility. We have a pretty good relationship, but it’s competing at the end of the day. It’s nothing bad between us, though.”

MacIntyre made similar comments before the season.

“I think you definitely have to find a balance between it,” said MacIntyre when asked about balancing supporting teammates while knowing he’s trying to win the job. “I think we all know in the quarterback room what the vibe is and we’re going to support whoever’s out there on the field at that given time. I think we do a good job of supporting each other and supporting ourselves when we’re in.”

Heupel confirmed on Monday, when he was asked how Brandon handled getting benched against Auburn, that the two quarterbacks aren’t necessarily hanging out away from the field.

“I think Faizon handled it well,” said Heupel. “He was a good teammate during the course of the football game. He was disappointed in that moment. I think he realized that he wasn’t playing his best — in part because of what he was dealing with physically from the week before.

“Those guys have been great together in the room. I’m not saying they’re the best of friends and hanging out outside of the building, but they have been really good inside the room, on the practice field, and on game day together. So I expect that to continue as we go.”

I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think it’s good that there’s some competitive tension between Brandon and MacIntyre. I think that will bring out the best in both quarterbacks.

After all, that competitive tension certainly brought out the best in Peyton Manning at Tennessee a little over 30 years ago.

Peyton, for example, famously locked Branndon Stewart out of a team meeting in 1994 when the two players were competing for a higher spot on the depth chart.

From The Grantland: The Manning-Stewart competition accelerated when fifth-year senior Jerry Colquitt injured his ACL in the season’s first game. Backup Todd Helton struggled with ineffectiveness and then injuries,1 leaving the job to the freshmen. While Manning and Stewart were always on friendly terms, Manning never missed a chance to gain an edge. “I locked [Stewart] out of a quarterback meeting one night,” Manning wrote. “We were scheduled to meet with coaches at eight o’clock, when a lot of the buildings on campus are closed and everything looks deserted. I was walking through one of the doors they had kept open for us and it ‘accidentally’ closed behind me, locking automatically. I knew Branndon was running late and that he’d have to get through that door. I didn’t bother to prop it back open.”

Quarterbacks don’t have to be best friends to have an elite quarterback room. They just need to be good teammates, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to MacIntyre and Brandon.