Pruitt: JT Shrout and Harrison Bailey will take the majority of the reps at QB going forward

You probably assumed this already, but it’s safe to say that the Jarrett Guarantano era at Tennessee is mercifully over. Tennessee turned to Harrison Bailey to start the Florida game and then finished up with JT Shrout. Brian Maurer was even mixed in during certain situations.

That appears to be the plan for the remainder of 2020, which hopefully will be two more games and a bowl bid.

“We’re going to go with Harrison and JT and stick with the same schedule we had last week,” Pruitt told reporters at his weekly press conference on Monday.

Guarantano was forced to quarantine for the two weeks leading into the Florida matchup, opening the door for a new plan under center for Tennessee. It was long overdue, as the Volunteers have sputtered offensively for most of 2020 — and a good portion of 2018 and 2019, for that matter.

Sitting at 2-5, going with your younger quarterback(s) was the only logical way to approach the final few games.

Tennessee’s offense didn’t see a massive uptick in production on Saturday, but they didn’t lose any ground either. More importantly, we finally got a chance to see what the Vols have in Harrison Bailey and JT Shrout, as each player begins to make a push for the starting nod in 2021.

Shrout was definitely the more productive of the two, leading two touchdown drives against a softer Gators’ defense in the closing quarter. Someone obviously has to start against Vanderbilt, but it sounds like Tennessee will operate with a two quarterback system to close the year — maybe even three, as we saw against Florida.