Tennessee football quarterbacks continue to be disrespected

It was bad enough two weeks ago when ESPN’s tiers of quarterback rooms had Hendon Hooker as a Tier 3 quarterback, which we wrote about here. Well, the disrespect doesn’t seem to stop when it comes to the Tennessee football quarterback situation.

Recently, Shehan Jeyarajah of CBS Sports did his own ranking of the best quarterback rooms, and for some reason, the Vols were excluded. Now, to be fair, the ranking was based not just on the talent of the projected starter but the overall projected depth of the position for each team.

Still, Hendon Hooker is a darkhorse Heisman Trophy candidate, and Tennessee football has plenty of talent in that room to complement him, at least enough to warrant a mention. Jeyarajah’s list had a top five and then five honorable mentions. Somehow, the Vols weren’t part of any of them.

The actual top five were the Ohio State Buckeyes, Alabama Crimson Tide, Michigan Wolverines, Georgia Bulldogs and LSU Tigers. Meanwhile, the Penn State Nittany Lions, Miami Hurricanes, SMU Mustangs, Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies were honorable mentions.

Of all those teams, Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama are the only ones who have the better case for a starting quarterback. More than half the other teams on the list made it because of the hype behind other quarterbacks on the list based on their recruiting rankings.

Some of those teams, though, had no quarterbacks who were five-star recruits. As a result, you have to take into account the recruiting hype behind the Vols’ own quarterbacks behind Hooker. If you do, they obviously should be on this list.

Most notable is Tayven Jackson. Tennessee football’s 2022 commitment was a four-star across the board and could still be the future for the Vols under Josh Heupel. He was an early enrollee, and combined with the hype behind Hooker, he alone should put the Vols on this list.

However, despite his flaws, Joe Milton III is still on the roster and has starting experience on his own. Meanwhile, Navy Shuler, a transfer from the Appalachian State Mountaineers, is the son of a UT legend in Heath Shuler and at the very least provides depth.

Breaking all this down, the Vols have a Heisman candidate, a guy with starting experience and another guy who brings plenty of hype to the position. That should be more than enough to say they have one of the 10 best quarterback rooms in the nation.

However, they were left off this list, proving Tennessee football quarterbacks continue to be disrespected. When you factor in what Josh Heupel is able to do with quarterbacks, it’s even a greater level of disrespect, but it’s also a great chance to prove a lot of people wrong.