Jeremy Pruitt on the Tennessee quarterback battle: ‘We may play both guys’

It’s game week and the Tennessee Volunteers have yet to name a starting quarterback. That’s not all that surprising, considering the preparation advantage it could give the Vols on Saturday against West Virginia. What Pruitt said on Sunday was surprising, however.

Pruitt appeared on the Vol Network’s Tennessee football preseason special and said that he may just end up playing both quarterbacks. Here are his full comments.

“To me, it’s hard enough to get one quarterback,” Pruitt said. “If you can get one quarterback, that’s great. If you can have two or three, you need to give them an opportunity. But I think it’s going to be important for us, whoever our quarterback is, that we need to play the number-two guy. You look at it all across the United States every year: People get hurt at quarterback, so you want the next guy to have some game experience. We need to make good decisions when to play the second guy. We may play both guys, so we’ve got to figure it out as we go.”

Redshirt sophomore Jarrett Guarantano has been battling it out with grad-transfer senior Keller Chryst in camp. Sophomore Will McBride and freshman JT Shrout haven’t been ruled out either, but are both longshots to win the job.

Guarantano seems to have all the momentum in the battle at this point and most expect him to be named the starter at some point. Keller Chryst is still trying to dig out of his disadvantage of arriving in the summer, which allowed Guarantano to dive into the playbook and take the reps during the spring.

Would Pruitt really play two quarterbacks? I’d say it’s possible against ETSU or UTEP, but this two quarterback chatter against West Virginia seems like nothing more than a coach trying to force his opponent into preparing for both passers.