Tennessee football: Five reasons Vols should stick with Jarrett Guarantano

4. Not everything in the passing game is his fault

Is it Jarrett Guarantano’s fault that Eric Gray was starting as a true freshman pass-blocking running back in Tennessee football’s opener against the Georgia State Panthers and was clearly not ready for the moment? What about the fact that interior blocking has been atrocious through two games, largely because the coaches keep moving tackles over to guard?

Of course that’s not his fault. In this past week’s game, he got a ton of flack for settling and making check-down passes to Gray and Ty Chandler. But we’ve seen what Chandler can do, and Gray is getting painted as the next Alvin Kamara. Shouldn’t a quarterback trust guys like that to be able to elude tacklers in open space? Is it Guarantano’s fault that they didn’t?

Then there’s the dropped pass by Jauan Jennings in the end zone. You can say Guarantano threw it too late and that he missed the open man. Both things are true. But none of that would have been noticed if Jennings came down with it. The Vols would have taken care of the BYU Cougars in regulation with no chance of late-game heroics from Zach Wilson.

This is not to fully excuse Guarantano. His interception thrown into triple-coverage was horrible, and he was lucky to have that one touchdown pass to Jennings. But there are other numerous issues, and the questionable interior blocking is probably why he’s not going through his progressions. He doesn’t yet trust his linemen to protect for him long enough.