KNOXVILLE – If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
Tennessee’s quarterback situation this season hasn’t been one for the faint of heart. The Volunteers started the year with incumbent Jarrett Guarantano as the unquestioned starter, but the junior struggled in the team’s first four games with turnovers and general ineffectiveness, particularly in the red zone.
He was replaced by freshman Brian Maurer, who now has started four games but has not finished any of them. Three of those were due to injuries; the fourth was Saturday’s 17-13 win over Kentucky, when he was replaced by Guarantano.
Redshirt freshman J.T. Shrout also has started a game at quarterback. So has senior receiver Jauan Jennings, but Guarantano has finished most of them, save for the 41-21 win over South Carolina when Shrout had to replace him after he broke his non-throwing hand while completing a touchdown pass.
During the team’s recent five-game hot streak, with the Vols winning four of them, Guarantano has averaged over 3 more yards per completion than when he was starting and nearly 2 more yards per attempt. He also has six touchdowns to just one interception in that span.
“Well, I don’t know why he’s able to do that,” Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt said Saturday when asked why it appears Guarantano has been better off the bench. “I think he’s mature. He knows what we’re trying to do offensively. He’s smart. He done a great job tonight. He’s done a great job coming off the bench all year, that we’ve asked him to do it. I just think he’s a guy that, he wanted to play well tonight and he did. He prepared during the week to do that.”
The four wins in five games make the Vols 5-5 and 3-3 in the Southeastern Conference heading into an off week, but they have not had a lot of success this century playing at least three quarterbacks:
* 2017 – Guarantano, Quinton Dormady and Will McBride started games in the program’s first-ever eight-loss season, which included the firing of head coach Butch Jones;
* 2014 – Justin Worley started seven games, Josh Dobbs started five and Nathan Peterman started one. An injury led to Dobbs starting the final five games and going 4-1, which ended in a 45-28 win over Iowa in the TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida;
* 2013 – The same three quarterbacks started games, only that year the Vols lost four of their final five to end 5-7;
* 2011 – The combination of Tyler Bray, Worley and Matt Simms led the Vols to a 5-7 record.
The one time in somewhat recent memory that Tennessee has had success with multiple options at quarterback dates back to 2004, when the trio of Rick Clausen, Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer combined for 27 touchdowns while leading the Vols to a 10-3 record, the SEC East title and a 38-7 win over Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl.
But this season, it’s working, albeit with unorthodox methods.
And everybody is fine with it.
“It works for us because we’ve been winning the last few games and I think we’ve been doing a good job with it,” senior linebacker Darrell Taylor said of the platoon system. “Our quarterbacks have been steady and doing a good job, and we’ve been doing good with it.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.