Tennessee football at Florida: 10 keys to the game
2. Quarterback situation for both teams
Every turnover suffered by Tennessee football and Florida this year has come from the quarterbacks. That was the point of our previous two slides. The Vols have played three different quarterbacks at times this year in Joe Milton III, Harrison Bailey and Hendon Hooker. Milton and Hooker have each started at least one game.
On the other side, Dan Mullen has largely played Emory Jones, but Anthony Richardson has seen plenty of action as well, and last week, with Richardson hurt, Jones saw all the action. Now, Richardson is back, and that means both teams have a quarterback competition.
The crazy part is that the quarterbacks in the running are all more runners than passers. Hooker is the only quarterback who has shown he can truly do both, completing 70 percent of his passes while scoring seven total touchdowns. He’s one interception and a bad read on an RPO away from easily being the starter.
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A lot of this depends on the health of Milton and Richardson and how well Mullen and Josh Heupel manage the situation. However, there’s no doubt that this will have a huge outcome on the game. One of the quarterbacks could settle in as the full-time starter with a solid performance on Saturday, so watch out for what all of them do.