Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel isn’t going to name a starting quarterback until sometime during fall camp.

Heupel made it clear at the start of spring practice that he wants to see how the quarterbacks in this battle — true freshman Faizon Brandon and redshirt freshman George MacIntyre — evolve this summer and into fall camp before naming a starter.

That’s certainly the right approach as Brandon and MacIntyre each have a significant amount of growth ahead of them.

But regardless of what happens this summer and in fall camp — with the exception of one of the quarterbacks regressing (which no one is anticipating) — I think it’s already obvious what Heupel’s quarterback solution should be in 2026.

Tennessee needs to play both quarterbacks to start the season

Heupel may be wise to stretch this quarterback competition into the regular season.

After all, neither MacIntyre nor Brandon have ever played in a meaningful college football game. No one really has any idea how they’ll perform on a Saturday in the SEC.

And Heupel knows from experience that what you see during fall camp may not be what you see when the lights come on during the regular season.

In 2021, Heupel and his staff thought Joe Milton deserved to be named the starting quarterback over Hendon Hooker based on how the competition went during fall camp.

Hooker, of course, proved to be the far better option after he replaced an injured Milton early in the 2021 season.

Former Vols offensive coordinator Alex Golesh pointed out in 2023 that he was “wrong” when he thought Milton was the right starting option for the Vols.

“I don’t know that you really know until you know,” said Golesh in 2023 while discussing identifying a starting quarterback. “I went through it at the previous place (Tennessee) where I thought I knew and I was wrong, so I’m humble enough to admit that.”

It wasn’t just the coaches that thought Milton was the right option. The players saw it, too.

“I’ve said that for years [that] Joe was a great practice player,” said Lane last summer during an appearance on The Sports Source. “And that’s no knock on his game at all. But Joe was great in practice. Looked amazing in practice. Hendon was not the best practice player. That’s when he would sometimes make mistakes that were stupid mistakes in practice.

“That competition, it was a weird competition because Joe really did win that competition in practice — because he was the better quarterback in practice. But then when you get in those game situations, practice isn’t always like the game, and so Hendon was just a true gamer. He knew how to step up to that stage and get it done. And that’s not to say Joe didn’t, but Joe could obviously put that on better in practice. And so that made it seem like he was the easy option (to be named the starter).”

There’s simply no way Heupel will know after fall camp which one of these players will perform better under the lights. No one can know until they’re put in actual games.

Which is why I think Heupel needs to let both quarterbacks play in the season-opener against Furman. And both quarterbacks should continue to play until it becomes obvious which player deserves to be the starter.

This is the approach that Phillip Fulmer took in 2004 with Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer. That season worked out pretty well for the V0ls — it was the last time Tennessee beat Alabama, Florida, and Georgia all in the same season — so why not give that strategy a shot in 2026?