Tennessee Football: Quarterbacks split reps during BYE Week

Tennessee Football is still looking for a consistent answer, and Jeremy Pruitt tried to find that answer during the Vols’ BYE week.

There’s no doubt that Tennessee football’s biggest eyesore right now is at the quarterback position. The fan base is split on who should run the offense, but most fans agree that it shouldn’t be Jarrett Guarantano.

After a little bit better performance against Alabama, Guarantano might’ve given Jeremy Pruitt some more confidence in his quarterback, but regardless of how he feels about JG, Pruitt opted to split quarterback reps during Tennesse’s BYE week.

The Vols have lost three games in a row, so it would make sense to consider a quarterback change, especially with how bad the offense has been in the last three games.

Although it looks like Guarantano will be starting against Arkansas, all four of Tennessee’s scholarship quarterbacks had the opportunity to get some snaps during practice last week.

"“We repped three groups last week, so we went back and didn’t have enough to do four, but we did do three groups,” Pruitt said about the Vols’ BYE week reps between quarterbacks. “So we split the quarterbacks amongst those three groups and got them a lot of reps there.“We went back to fall camp. In fall camp, we usually work four groups all the time, and everybody gets the same amount of reps — at every position. That’s why we believe that players develop. It’s because we spend that much time working on four groups. We split the staff up. We watch every bit of the tape. This past week, we kept some guys out of practice to help them heal up a little bit — a few guys — so we only worked three groups. But we still went back to camp mode. We worked very little on future opponents. We worked more on ourselves and the fundamental part, so just — like I said — Day One, Two, Three, Four, Five of install, just trying to get back to the basics.”"

Before the BYE week, Pruitt said the Vols are sticking with JG at quarterback, and one of the reasons behind that decision was the other quarterbacks, specifically Harrison Bailey, didn’t have enough time before the season to learn the complex offense.

If Pruitt keeps things simple and goes back to the basics for the rest of the season, then Bailey should be able to run the offense for at least a game or two.

The Vols have one of the worst offenses in the SEC in recent weeks, and the turnovers coming from the offense isn’t helping. The Vols have a -2.0 turnover margin, which puts the Vols at 67th best in the country in that category and tied for ninth in the SEC.

Tennessee won’t win too many more games if they continue to turn the ball over more than their opponent, and Pruitt could possibly fix the turnover issue by changing quarterbacks.