Now that spring ball is wrapped up, the focus is now on fall camp for the Tennessee football team and Urban Meyer is going to be keeping a close eye on the Vols. As we've said countless times, there's a massive change on the way on offense for Tennessee.
With Nico Iamaleava off to the Big Ten, head man Josh Heupel has a big decision to make. From our chair, it seems like an easy one, as he should hand the keys to Joey Aguilar, who has transferred in from UCLA. However, Jake Merklinger is going to push for the QB1 job too.
There's uncertainty surrounding who will start Week 1 against Syracuse. Meyer, the legendary Ohio State coach, knows that this call won't be super easy for Heupel, but he's calling for him to get this done as soon as possible, making it clear he can't wait until the last minute to let his team know who the offensive leader will be.
Urban Meyer wants Josh Heupel to make a quick QB call for Tennessee football
"The minute you said you got a quarterback issue, I go right to their schedule," Meyer said on his podcast via A to Z sports. "And here's the problem...you have to name this quarterback within two weeks of training camp. There's no chance that you can let this thing bleed out, because the team has to know who your quarterback is. So a guy (Aguilar) that's just stepping on campus now, a guy (Merklinger) that's only attempted nine passes. You have to (name a starter quickly)."
It's easy to agree with Meyer there. Come Week 1, the Vols will be taking on Syracuse and then a matchup with East Tennessee State will follow in Week 2. That will set up a MASSIVE tilt against Georgia in Week 3. Regardless of if it's Aguilar or Merklinger, you're going to want your QB1 to be in a rhythm with Kirby Smart and Co. waiting not long into the season.
Aguilar is the favorite to open the season as the starter, as he put up huge numbers at App State over the past two years. He's got the starting experience advantage there too. Until fall camp gets here, it will be unknown who will be the Iamaleava replacement, but Heupel indeed can't wait too long to make his final decision.
Once Aguilar gets on campus in Knoxville, he's going to look to start developing a ton of chemistry with his pass-catchers and work overtime in learning the playbook. If it was our call, Aguilar would be the starter, but there's a reason Heupel gets paid the big bucks.