It’s clear how fans should feel about Tennessee QB George MacIntyre after the loss to South Carolina, but it seems like not everyone agrees
The Tennessee Volunteers couldn’t finish the job on Saturday against the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Tennessee was the better team on Saturday in Columbia, but they didn’t come out on the right side of the scoreboard.
The Vols had too many penalties and they didn’t execute on a couple of plays late in the game when they could’ve put the game away.
And when you do that on the road in the SEC, you usually lose.
There’s plenty to digest from the game, but my immediate takeaway as the clock hit zero was that sophomore quarterback George MacIntyre played a great game.
Now, the box score won’t say the same thing — 136 passing yards and zero passing touchdowns — but that’s because MacIntyre had three touchdown passes wiped off the board due to penalties that didn’t actually impact the play.
One was a touchdown on a third-and-12 situation that would’ve put the Vols up by 11 points.
Another was an absolute dime to Matthews that was called back because of an alignment issue.
MacIntyre wasn’t perfect. He needs to pull the trigger quicker in some situations, and the botched fourth down play at the end of the game can’t happen.
But overall, I thought he played very well in a tough environment — especially considering it was just his third career start.
Look, we can argue all we want about Josh Heupel’s decision to go into the season without an experienced quarterback — there will be a time for that conversation in December — but this is the team that Tennessee has right now. And I think we saw MacIntyre take a step forward even though the Vols didn’t get the result they wanted. He made some big plays down the field, he picked up some important yards with his legs, and he protected the ball outside of the play where South Carolina star EDGE Dylan Stewart forced the fumble (I still don’t understand why right tackle Jesse Perry was left one-on-one with Stewart in that situation).
MacIntyre is the guy right now. I think everyone should be encouraged by what they saw on Saturday in Columbia. Tennessee got in an early 14-0 hole and MacIntyre led an offensive attack that had the lead by halftime. If the silly penalties don’t happen, he finishes with an impressive stat line and the Vols win the game by multiple scores.
Sure, the result is all that ultimately matters, but the result never tells the full story of a game.
MacIntyre can be a really good quarterback in the SEC. He’s getting better each week. There’s reason to believe in him going forward.
Remember, he’s not supposed to be a finished product right now — no one in college is supposed to be.
