Tennessee Volunteers Quarterback Battle: Guarantano OR Chryst?

Since before the start of fall camp, one of the big questions for the Tennessee Volunteers has been who will be the starting quarterback in 2018. There is a battle underway on Rocky Top and only time will tell.

The Tennessee Volunteers now have five practices under their belt since the start of fall camp. There are four quarterbacks on the roster: Keller Chryst, Jarrett Guarantano, Will McBride, JT Shrout. The battle for the starting spot seems to be between Chryst and Guarantano.

While Chryst has been the odds-on favorite, fans and experts alike seem to be swaying a little bit more towards Guarantano.  There is no doubt that all eyes are on these two quarterbacks so I decided to compare them by their numbers from last year.

Keller Chryst is a graduate transfer from Stanford University standing 6’5, 239 lbs.  Given the fact that he has played more seasons than Guarantano, let’s only use statistics from the 2017 season.

Chryst played in seven games in 2017.  In those seven games, he completed 78 out 144 passing attempts (54.16%) for a total of 962 yards.  Of those 78 completions, 8 were touchdowns and 4 were interceptions.  The longest pass he completed was for 56 yards against Rice.

Jarrett Guarantano is a redshirt sophomore who stands 6’4 and weighs in at 209 lbs.  Coming into Tennessee, Guarantano was the number one ranked dual-threat quarterback in the nation. Needless to say, after having Dobbs at the helm Tennessee fans had high expectations for the young quarterback.

While Guarantano played in two more games than Chryst (9), he was not the starting quarterback until the South Carolina game, the Volunteers sixth game of the season.  During the nine games that he played last season, Guarantano completed 86 out of 139 attempts (61.87%) for a total of 997 yards and an average of 110.78 yards per game.

Of his 86 completions, only four were for touchdowns while two went for interceptions.  The longest pass he threw last season was for 60 yards against LSU.

When you look at both quarterback’s numbers side by side, they are very similar with Guarantano having the slight edge.  There are, however, a couple of big differences between the two quarterbacks, one of them being the win/loss record.  Just talking about the games that both players started last season, Chryst went 5-2 while Guarantano was 1-5.

While Chryst definitely has the better record, some have argued that he won against sub-par talent playing in the Pac-12.  The teams he beat last season had a combined record of 22-41 while the two teams he lost to (USC San Diego State) had a combined record of 21-6.

Guarantano, on the other hand, competed in the mighty Southeastern Conference (SEC).  Looking at the teams he lost to, they had a combined record of 56-24 and the teams he beat had a combined record of 12-24.  Not to mention, two of those losses came at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide, who each appeared in the national championship game.

Another interesting statistic is how many times each player was sacked.  Keller Chryst was only sacked eight times in the seven games he played.  Jarrett Guarantano was sacked a total of 26 times last season.   With that being said, Guarantano still managed to have slightly better numbers, at least on the surface.

At this point, it seems that the starting job is completely up for grabs.  As I said before, the odds-on favorite at this point is Keller Chryst we will not know anything until the season opener gets closer.

It is nice to see competition back on the practice field at Tennessee.  Healthy competition will only make everyone better and hopefully bring the players closer together as a team.  This quarterback battle is going to be interesting for sure and Volunteer fans everywhere will be waiting eagerly to find out who will be the leader of this offense.