Josh Heupel might be about to hand the keys to a kid who was still playing high school ball a year ago. According to college football insider Pete Nakos, five-star true freshman Faizon Brandon has positioned himself to start Tennessee's season opener against Furman on September 5, and if it happens, it would be a moment the program has literally never seen before.
Pete Nakos laid out exactly what's at stake with the Vols' QB decision.
It would be the first time in Tennessee football history to start a true freshman QB in Week 1.
That's not a small claim. Tennessee football goes back over a century, and in all that time, no true freshman has ever been under center Week 1. The expectation heading into the offseason was that redshirt freshman George MacIntyre would take that job, but Brandon has apparently made the decision a lot harder than anyone anticipated.
Brandon didn't sneak up on anybody as a recruit. He was a five-star prospect ranked the No. 3 quarterback and No. 9 overall player in his class nationally, and he backed that up at Grimsley High School with 7,490 passing yards and 90 touchdowns across four varsity seasons, plus another 1,494 yards and 24 scores on the ground, according to Yahoo Sports. That kind of production is exactly why Heupel's staff pushed hard to land him in the first place.
MacIntyre, meanwhile, had what's been described as an up-and-down spring and never fully locked the job down, leaving the door cracked for Brandon to walk through it. Heupel himself has already tipped his hand a bit, saying after a spring scrimmage he was "certainly pleased with what he's done up until this point" from the true freshman, per Yahoo Sports.
For a program that's spent the last few years trying to reestablish itself as an SEC contender under Heupel, throwing a true freshman into the fire Week 1 is a massive bet. It's not just a quarterback competition anymore, it's a referendum on how much this coaching staff trusts pure talent over experience, and it's going to shape how oddsmakers and fans view the entire opener against Furman.
Nothing is locked in yet, and Heupel has less than two months to make it official. But if Brandon does trot out for that first snap on September 5, Tennessee will have written a new chapter in program history before the Vols even play a single down that counts.