Tennessee football: Jarrett Guarantano overachieved in first start as Vols QB

Tennessee football quarterback Jarrett Guarantano overachieved in his first start as the Volunteers quarterback against the South Carolina Gamecocks.

On the surface, this could seem like a crazy assertion. Tennessee football’s offense was so awful in the second half, picking up negative yardage until the fourth quarter. At the same time, Jarrett Guarantano was unable to get the Vols into the end zone in his first start.

But amidst all of that, he overachieved. We said last week that the Tennessee coaches were setting up Guarantano to fail.

The guy is a redshirt freshman and was replacing Quinten Dormady, who had not done a terrible job to that point. And with limited options at receiver, predictable offensive play-calling and against a defensive genius in Will Muschamp, it didn’t matter that Tennessee was coming off a bye.

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Guarantano simply had no chance to succeed. The continued in-game coaching blunders didn’t help either.

Nonetheless, Guarantano went 11-of-18 for 133 yards. He also got Tennessee down the field in a minute at the end of the game, putting them in position to score a game-winning touchdown.

Sure, he failed, and the Vols lost 15-9 as a result. But again, he was set up to fail in this game.

Given the circumstances, Guarantano overachieved. Some of the things he could improve on include not taking too long to throw the ball, knowing when to run, and being more aware in the pocket.

But he’s a freshman. And he was playing for a team and a fan base that appears to have quit on their coach and the season.

So no, I do not blame Guarantano one bit for Tennessee football’s loss to South Carolina last Saturday. Dormady probably would have been better, and Butch Jones never should have benched him in the first place.

Perhaps Larry Scott could have mixed up his play-calling a bit more to make John Kelly more of a threat in the backfield as well. And maybe the offensive line could have avoided a couple of key penalties.

Oh year. Jones could have also called a timeout at the end of the first half to avoid a delay of game.

All of these things would have helped Guarantano a bit more. Instead, he was tasked with sparking the Vols against a coach who is known to neutralize mobile quarterbacks. He had no chance to succeed. But he still put them in position to potentially win the game at the end.

And when Guarantano failed, he broke down at the end of the game. The loss hurt him more than anybody else. He then took all the blame for it in the postgame press conference, even though none of it falls on him. So his intangibles and mentality are right too. As a result, he overachieved in this game, and we don’t blame him at all.