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Tennessee football: Butch Jones should wait to name starting QB until Vols game day

By Caleb Calhoun

COLLEGE STATION, TX - OCTOBER 08: Head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers Butch Jones watches a play in the first half of their game against the Texas A
COLLEGE STATION, TX - OCTOBER 08: Head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers Butch Jones watches a play in the first half of their game against the Texas A /
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Tennessee football head coach Butch Jones still hasn’t named a starting quarterback. And he shouldn’t until the day of the Volunteers’ opening game.

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Tennessee football’s opening game is now less than three weeks away, and Butch Jones still hasn’t named a starting quarterback. Who will emerge between Quinten Dormady and Jarrett Guarantano?

To be fair, when you’re looking for somebody to replace Joshua Dobbs, you want to take your time and get it right. And it’s not like teams haven’t taken longer to name a starter in the past.

Still, to many analysts, it seems clear by this point that Dormady is the frontrunner and Guarantano is playing catch-up. So why wait?

Well, unless the coaches are truly unsure, they might be making a brilliant move.

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There’s a chance that Jones, new quarterbacks coach Mike Canales and new offensive coordinator Larry Scott are holding off naming a starter until the day of Tennessee football’s opening game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

And that might be a brilliant move.

The Vols are opening the season against a Georgia Tech team that is tricky enough to defend with Paul Johnson’s triple-option. The best way to get a leg up on them is to keep them guessing on who the starting quarterback will be.

This wouldn’t always work, but it does here since Dormady and Guarantano have such different styles. Dormady is the pure drop-back passer with deadly accuracy and experience, having played two years in the Vols’ system as a backup to Dobbs.

Guarantano is the dual-threat quarterback with a ton of potential but is a redshirt freshman.

We’ve heard the stories about the differences all too often at this point. What we haven’t heard is who’s going to take the reigns on Rocky Top.

And now, with the opener less than three weeks away, there’s no reason to name one before you have to.

After all, given their different styles, they could both keep Georgia Tech guessing on what to prepare for. That gives the coaches a huge advantage.

In fact, if both are good enough, Jones and the coaches would be right to alternate the quarterbacks the first two games. After all, that could get them past Georgia Tech.

And they should have no trouble getting past the Indiana State Sycamores the next week.

This way, the Florida Gators are left guessing on which quarterback will start, and keeping them on their heels will be a huge advantage.

So why name a guy now? It does the Tennessee football team no good to do such a thing.

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Even if they know who to go with, the Vols should keep everything quiet. They should also keep everybody guessing up until the Florida game if they can. That way, they already have one huge advantage in trying to get a head start in the SEC East race. And it could help them get past their opener against a very tricky team.

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