Tennessee football Smokey Points: Top 5 Vols performers in loss at Georgia

There was plenty to criticize about Jarrett Guarantano’s play on Saturday afternoon. He continues to take the safe route on too many throws and needs to be more aggressive at times if he is going to be the consistent playmaker Tennessee football needs him to be.

However, if there’s a player who doesn’t quit, it’s this guy. Guarantano fought his guts out all game long, and after the Vols fell down 24-0, he kept fighting. The result was scoring two touchdowns on three drives to make it a two-score game in the fourth quarter.

Guarantano finally began to air it out, and he hit Josh Palmer on a beautiful pass for his first touchdown. His second touchdown pass was all on the runner, which we’ll get to later in this post. However, he still deserves credit for keeping his team together and fighting to make this a game.

The sophomore quarterback finished the game 13-of-21 for 143 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He did get sacked twice, but he made many nice throws while under pressure. He continues to show an ability to stand in the pocket and take hits.

And the real key was he had no turnovers, a big improvement from the previous week against the Florida Gators. He may still be too much of a game manager, but there is clearly a lot of fight in Guarantano, and as a result, he deserves credit and recognition for that. So he earned his helmet sticker on Saturday.