Tennessee Football: Harrison Bailey could be coming into form

Tennessee Football could start a new quarterback if Jarrett Guarantano can’t go on Saturday, and Harrison Bailey could be coming into form.

Tennessee football’s offense has been very inconsistent this season, and Jeremy Pruitt rotating different quarterbacks in and out hasn’t helped any of the quarterbacks.

For a quarterback to be successful, he needs some consistency. No Tennessee quarterback has seen consistency this season, and it has shown. When one quarterback isn’t performing, Pruitt throws in two backups, and after a drive or two, when they don’t work out, Pruitt pulls them to put the starter back in.

If Jarrett Guarantano can’t go this Saturday, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw this poor roster management again with Harrison Bailey, J.T. Shrout, and Brian Maurer.

If Pruitt does miraculously stick with one quarterback for the final game, many Tennessee fans will hope that Bailey gets the nod. He led the offense on the game’s final drive against Arkansas and led the Vols to the red zone before throwing an interception.

During the extra BYE, Tennessee had due to COVID-19, Bailey has had the opportunity to spend some more time under center before the Vols’ next game. It turns out there have been some big improvements by Bailey during this time.

That’s no surprise, knowing what kind of quarterback he was in high school, and if he was given time, he would be able to develop into a solid college quarterback whenever he gets the opportunity.

Pruitt noted that Bailey has become more comfortable in the pocket during practice, which could lead to the Vols leaning on Bailey this Saturday against Auburn.

"“Just command,” Pruitt said of Bailey’s improvement. “When you are comfortable doing something, running an offense, whatever it is, you have confidence. Your peers can see it. You can’t fake confidence. It’s either natural or it’s not, and that’s not to take anything away from him, but the more you do something, the more comfortable you get at it and the better you feel and the more confident you are, and you can see that.“The simplicity of communicating the calls all the way across the board. You’re talking about a young guy sitting here and you got to tell Trey Smith which guy he’s supposed to block on this run play right here. ‘The MIKE is 42 or whatever, we’re working 42.’ Just some of that. Nothing different that you see out of any freshman. It’s no different than Tamarion McDonald making all the calls in the secondary, or last year Henry To’o To’o when Daniel Bituli was out having to be kind of the quarterback of the defense. It’s something that the more you do it, the more you gain confidence in and everybody sees it.”"

This is great news for Tennessee fans as the Vols need to find their future at quarterback fast before the offense spirals more out of control. If The quarterback situation can be figured out, then there’s a possibility where the Vols can recover and finish the season with a decent record.