Jarrett Guarantano attends the Manning Passing Academy; Details his progress over the offseason

For the second season in a row, Tennessee’s fall camp will be dominated by quarterback headlines. Jarrett Guarantano will once again be a part of another battle, taking on grad-transfer Keller Chryst who has now arrived from Stanford.

Before that battle truly begins, Guarantano took advantage of this little bit of down time to attend the Manning Passing Academy as a counselor, along with several of his college football quarterback peers.

He caught up with houmatoday.com during his stay, detailing last season and the changes that have taken place on the coaching staff.

“Last year was a big learning curve for me. There were a lot of things that didn’t go too well, and there are things we learned from that we’re going to be a lot better,” Guarantano said. “I believe the coaching staff change was a great decision.” (via houmatoday.com)

Guarantano ended 2017 with just 997 yards passing, putting up four touchdowns against two interceptions. He played conservatively, but in his defense — the talent and coaching around him wasn’t all that spectacular. Still, Guarantano never did look very comfortable.

To his credit, Guarantano looked like he was a more confident player in the spring game. That’s a fairly cushy setting for a quarterback, but the rising redshirt sophomore looked like he had a better grasp of what was happening in front of him on that day — despite Tyson Helton’s new offensive scheme.

“I’m working on quicker release, making quicker decisions, getting the ball out of my hand,” Guarantano said. “Coach Pruitt has brought everything from Alabama. We can see how much he cares about football, and how much he loves the guys. He’s assembled a winning program. We feel like if we follow him, we’ll be just fine.”

A quicker release and a faster processing speed is exactly where Guarantano was lacking last season. We’ve already seen some improvement there, which is exciting to think about about considering he’s only worked with this staff for a brief period of time.

Guarantano may not win the job this year with veteran Keller Chryst in town, but it’s encouraging to see him take steps forward so quickly.