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Tennessee football’s five best years with senior QB

By Caleb Calhoun

16 Sep 1995: Quarterback Peyton Manning sets to throw a pass during the Volunteers 62-37 loss to the University of Florida at Florida Field in Gainesville, Florida. Mandatory Credit: Scott Halleran/Allsport
16 Sep 1995: Quarterback Peyton Manning sets to throw a pass during the Volunteers 62-37 loss to the University of Florida at Florida Field in Gainesville, Florida. Mandatory Credit: Scott Halleran/Allsport /
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Jarrett Guarantano is projected to be Tennessee football’s starter this year. Here are the Volunteers’ top five years with a senior quarterback.

Unless something changes, Tennessee football will start the season with a redshirt senior quarterback. Jarrett Guarantano has been with the Vols for five years, this will be his third year under Jeremy Pruitt and it will be the first time he actually goes into a second year with the same offensive coordinator.

What does that all mean for the program? The last time they started a senior quarterback was 2016, and that also happens to be the last season they finished ranked in the top 25. So it’s clear that senior quarterbacks are valuable.

Since the quarterback became an integral part of Tennessee football, the Vols have won multiple championships with senior signal callers. That could be a great sign for Jarrett Guarantano, or it could leave him a lot to live up to.

Who is he living up to, though? Well, in this post, we’re going to break down exactly which seasons were the Vols’ best with a senior quarterback. Our criteria is simple. These are based on how well the season went. It does not matter how well the senior quarterback, or quarterbacks, played.

For this list, we’re only including quarterbacks that date back to the Doug Dickey era. That’s because before Dickey installed the T-formation in 1964, the Vols never had an official quarterback. They had a series of backs, including tailbacks and halfbacks, but never a clear passer. Nobody threw for over 1,000 yards until Dickey.

Also, since there were some seasons that saw multiple quarterbacks play, to qualify here, a senior quarterback has to have played in the opener and also started the majority of the season. Yes, there have been some legendary years in which UT played a variety of different quarterbacks. In other cases, though, they just played one all year.

So which years fit this criteria? How far did Rocky Top go during this time? Let’s see which years Jarrett Guarantano wants to emulate. These are Tennessee football’s five best seasons with a senior starting quarterback.

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