It’s finally football time in Tennessee, and we’ll be squeezing every morsel of news out of every word that escapes new coach Jeremy Pruitt’s mouth over the next month leading up to the season opener in Charlotte against West Virginia.
But we are here to fully arm you with every bit of information we can leading up to the season’ start. In order to do that, we’ve got to get you up-to-date on all the new personnel you’ll be seeing on the football field in 2018.
More than 30 new players will suit up for the Big Orange who didn’t this spring. Many of those weren’t even in orange and white for the worst season in school history a year ago. That’s not a bad thing, either.
Pruitt came in and immediately determined the team that went 4-8 last year wasn’t equipped to win this year, either. So, he called on reinforcements. Over the next few days, we’ll brief you on the newbies at each position.
Let’s start with quarterbacks
QUARTERBACKS
We’ll give you a glimpse at who’s back as redshirt sophomore Jarrett Guarantano comes off some starting experience last year to battle for the starting gig again in ’18. True sophomore Will McBride will be in the mix for the job, too. Pruitt said on Thursday that, no matter what everybody thinks, it’s going to be a true four-man battle.
That means one of the two below guys could be under center to run Tyson Helton’s offense when the Vols take on the Mountaineers on September 1.
KELLER CHRYST, 6’5″, 239-pound redshirt senior
If the coaching staff is sold on Guarantano being the guy, they sure aren’t letting folks know. This past spring, with Chryst waiting to come to Knoxville after transferring from Stanford, the New Jersey product had the opportunity to get a head start on Chryst. That didn’t happen. So, now, it’s a free-for-all, and the former starting quarterback of the Cardinal will have a say-so in this battle before it’s all said and done.
So, what is UT getting from Chryst in his last year? Well, he’s a big dude who can take the punishment from an offensive line that will be far from elite. You have to love physicality at the QB position, and that’s what he brings. Chryst doesn’t have a big arm, and he wasn’t ever asked to stretch the field too much in a David Shaw offense that stresses ball control and the run game.
He developed a “dink-and-dunk” reputation with the Cardinal, and he’s shown that so far at UT. Other than the physicality and size, you have to like that Chryst is a winner. No, he couldn’t hold off Kevin Hogan or beat out KJ Costello for the job in Palo Alto, but he was 11-2 as a starter.
What doesn’t he do well? Chryst gets the ball out of his hand in time, but he’s not a terribly accurate passer, and though he’s athletic, he’s not real fast. He seems better-suited to run a pro-style offense than Guarantano, but he’s not going to move the pocket a whole lot and make plays outside the tackle box. He needs to be more accurate and more consistent to be a real difference-maker for the Vols.
But there are some aspects of his game that are intriguing, and it’s possible he’ll be better than anything UT has on the roster this season. It would still be a surprise for him to beat out JG.
JT SHROUT, 6’3″, 210-pound freshman
When Pruitt and Co. came on board, the Vols had a pair of good-looking quarterback prospects in the fold with Adrian Martinez and Michael Penix Jr. The staff wanted to keep Martinez, even if he wasn’t the ideal fit for the offense, and Martinez ultimately visited Nebraska when Scott Frost took over and wound up flipping to become the Cornhuskers’ quarterback of the future.
Penix and the Vols parted ways, and at last check, he was battling to be former UT offensive coordinator Mike DeBord’s starting quarterback with the Indiana Hoosiers this spring.
Instead, the Vols zeroed in on long-time California quarterback commitment JT Shrout, a Cali boy who seemed locked in with Justin Wilcox and the home-state Bears. Shrout visited Knoxville and decided to flip to Tennessee.
Now, the Vols are excited about Shrout’s future, even if he’s a long shot to win the job this year. “Long shot” doesn’t mean “no shot,” though. One thing that absolutely must improve his his ball security. It’s an eye-popping number when you see that he threw 25 — TWENTY FIVE!!! — interceptions as a senior against 27 touchdown passes.
Was he trying to do too much, or does he just not see defenders very well?
We’ll get the opportunity to see that before long. But Shrout has a loose, live arm and a great frame. Though he could stand to add 20 pounds of muscle, he has a nice physical basis for a collegiate frame.
Richmond Flowers III talked to Josh Ward (via GoVols247’s Patrick Brown) about how Shrout wowed NFL coaches at a camp before his senior year of high school.
“He came to our camp and the guys that were there as well — the No. 1 player in the country in (current Georgia freshman) Justin Fields and players like (current Ole Miss freshman) Matt Corral — well, some buzz started happening, the coaches started talking and what they saw is what they saw. That’s sort of up to them, and the reality is we had it covered by Yahoo! Sports and the sentiment got out about what they felt about JT Shrout.
“The benefit that JT received is just he was around some very quality folks that saw something that they see on daily basis relative to what they look for in the NFL. If you’ve got that, it’s just sort of taking that and honing it, because JT again only played his senior year. But certainly he has the qualities that coaches look for at the highest level.”
So, there are some moldable tools there. It’s just a matter of whether Helton and Co. can extract that from him and how long it will take.