It only took five games for discussion around who should be the starting quarterback for Tennessee football to be revived.
Freshman Faizon Brandon was pulled from the No. 14 Vols' 24-14 win over Auburn on Oct. 3 after a bad start. Sophomore George MacIntyre replaced him during the second quarter and led Tennessee the rest of the way.
Former Arkansas and Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt chimed in on the situation at the Knoxville Quarterback Club, although he stopped short of saying who should start vs the Razorbacks on Oct. 10 (4:15 p.m. ET, SEC Network). An audience member asked Nutt, a former quarterback, how he knew when to pull a quarterback.
"How do you know when to pull a quarterback? When he throws it to the wrong team," Nutt said Oct. 5, drawing
laughter from the room. "I want a QB that's going to take our team and put it in the end zone. And I want to make sure, 'Hey, we're wearing this colored jersey. You throw it to our guys. If our guys aren't open, you got to throw it to your grandmother in the third row or run it.' I'm being funny, but I'm going to tell you something, that's a really good question."
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel declined to name a starter for the Arkansas game earlier in the day.
Heupel did wait until Brandon threw his first interception of the season during the second quarter against Auburn to pull his five-star freshman. Brandon was 3-of-8 passing for zero yards and no touchdowns, along with four rushing attempts for minus-9 yards.
MacIntyre was 8-of-10 passing for 86 yards, no TDs and no interceptions after entering the game with 3:42 left in the second quarter.
The players in the locker room know who they go to as the leader, Nutt said, but that quarterback still has to consistently put the team in position to score without turning it over. Nutt emphasized taking care of the ball in his decision-making as a coach and the value of a quarterback who doesn't try to be a superhero.
Another audience member asked Nutt what he'd fix if he was the Tennessee coach. Nutt started off by saying the Vols' defense looks good and he likes their running game, especially getting DeSean Bishop the number of carries he had against Auburn.
Then, inevitably, came the quarterback situation.
"The bottom line of the (Tennessee) quarterbacks is this: It's the guy who's going to take the team and put it in the end zone the cleanest. That's the guy," Nutt said. "So both of them need to keep practicing very, very hard. There's going to be a lot of talk this week. 'Hey, why don’t we start the other guy?' I don't know yet, guys. I don't know yet about that. Let's just let the coaches coach right there ... And the players know now.
"They know now, and the first-team guy knows that there's a second-team guy now. He knows there's a guy that can throw it, and so everybody's got to be a little bit better in practice."
Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Why Houston Nutt weighed in on Tennessee football quarterback situation vs Arkansas
