Tennessee football: Five reasons Vols should stick with Jarrett Guarantano

5. Toughness

Say what you want, but very few people have the level of toughness at quarterback Jarrett Guarantano has shown. At 6’4″ 213 pounds, he plays like he’s the size of the quarterback for Tennessee football’s Saturday opponent, the Chattanooga Mocs. That guy is Nick Tiano, who is 6’5″ 240 pounds.

Since he became the starter, Guarantano has dealt with issues on the offensive line. He was stuck in Larry Scott’s and Butch Jones’s horrible scheme in 2017. Then he had to deal with a historically bad offensive line in 2018, one that saw him under pressure more than any quarterback in the SEC and didn’t have enough of a running game to take pressure off him.

As a result, Guarantano consistently stood in the pocket and took hit after hit. He was knocked out of three games last year. And this year, the hits have keep coming early on. Now, some of it is self-inflicted because of how long he takes to get rid of the ball. But part of that is also due to Jim Chaney’s love for slow-developing plays. So there’s some blame to go around.

Anyway, very few quarterbacks could withstand what Guarantano has had to withstand in the pocket, and that level of toughness alone should give him a chance to get things right. We know he’s not going to be mentally wrecked from all the hits he takes because we have already seen it time and time again. Taking those hits from SEC linemen is only more impressive.