Beginning the competition to determine a new starting quarterback and adjusting to a new defensive coordinator and his mostly new defensive staff?
Yes, it will be a busy spring at Tennessee.
The Volunteers will crank up their sixth spring under coach Josh Heupel on Monday with the first of 15 practices allotted by the NCAA. Tennessee is scheduled to conduct closed scrimmages on March 26 and April 2 before staging the Orange & White Game on April 11 inside Neyland Stadium.
Competing at quarterback will be redshirt freshman George MacIntyre, five-star early enrollee Faizon Brandon and Colorado transfer Ryan Staub, who spent three years in Boulder and will have two seasons of eligibility in Knoxville. MacIntyre played all of 18 snaps last year in lopsided victories for the Vols over East Tennessee State and New Mexico State, but the former Brentwood Academy standout has the most experience in the system and is expected to start out getting the first-team reps.
“He’s just continued to grow and understand things as simple as receiving a signal and being able to communicate it,” Heupel said in December before the Vols faced Illinois in the Music City Bowl. “His command of what we’re doing and his decision making have improved.”
Those 18 returning snaps — MacIntyre was 7-of-9 passing (77.8%) for 69 yards during his limited action — are the fewest for a Tennessee quarterback room under Heupel.
Should MacIntyre eventually win and hold down the job later this year, he would become the first Tennessee quarterback from the Volunteer State to start a majority of games in a season since Rhea County’s Andy Kelly from 1989-91. Knoxville Central’s Todd Helton started three games for the 1994 Vols before getting injured and replaced by Peyton Manning, while Sevier County’s Joey Mathews started the 2000 season opener but was quickly replaced by A.J. Suggs, who was soon supplanted by Casey Clausen.
Tennessee tailed off offensively in late-season losses to Vanderbilt and in the bowl, which helped turn an 8-3 season into 8-5, but whoever emerges at quarterback will be surrounded by familiar faces. The Vols are returning four of five starting offensive linemen, running back DeSean Bishop and the receiver tandem of Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley.
Bishop rushed for 1,076 yards, 5.9 yards per carry and 16 touchdowns last season, while Staley was the Southeastern Conference’s freshman of the year after amassing 68 catches for 837 yards and six scores.
It’s a different story defensively, where the Vols plummeted during the fifth and final season under former coordinator Tim Banks. Injuries to starting cornerbacks Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson III certainly played a factor, but Heupel wound up performing his first staff overhaul by firing Banks, secondary coach Willie Martinez and outside linebackers coach Levorn Harbin.
Jim Knowles, the defensive coordinator on Ohio State’s 2024 national championship team, now heads the defense, and he has hired Anthony Poindexter as co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach, Derek Jones as cornerbacks coach, and Andrew “AJ” Jackson as edge rushers coach. All three have worked previously for Knowles, including Poindexter and Jackson last season at Penn State, which could result in a quicker implementation of his system in the weeks ahead.
Defensive line coach Rodney Garner and linebackers coach William Inge are the only defensive holdovers from last season.
“We can go faster than in other situations I’ve been in, because I have a lot of coaches who have worked with me before,” Knowles said last month. “That’s a huge advantage, and we have a few players — which is really crazy in this day and age — who have been in this system, and really at all levels of the defense.
“They can help, too, so there is that opportunity to go faster, and we try to throw a lot at them early.”
(SIGN UP: Get the daily sports newsletter in your email box by clicking here)
Four players followed Knowles from Penn State — defensive lineman Xavier Gilliam, edge rusher Chaz Coleman, linebacker Amare Campbell and safety Dejuan Lane — and the Vols return linebacker Arion Carter, who led the SEC with 7.6 tackles per game. Carter declared for the NFL draft, withdrew from the draft pool to enter the transfer portal, and then returned to the Vols.
“Having answers is the most important thing,” Knowles said, “because you’re always going to have situations in a game where you have to have answers for how they’re hurting you or attacking you. You’re also going week to week in college football where offenses change, and that’s my job.
“We’re going to have answers for anything an offense can do to us.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.