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Tennessee’s spring practice opens a week from Monday. And, when the Vols take the field, all eyes will be on the quarterbacks.
For the first time in a long time, there’s a wide open battle to see who will start at QB for the Vols when the 2026 season tips off against Furman in September. Had Joey Aguilar received his injunction (and he shouldn’t have), any competition would have been perfunctory at best. Instead, the job will go to redshirt freshman George MacIntyre, true freshman Faizon Brandon, or junior transfer Ryan Staub.
When’s the last time that there was this much uncertainty surrounding who would be QB1 for the Vols? The situation reminds me of my first year on the Tennessee beat, more than 20 years ago: in 2004, to be precise. Tennessee had to replace multi-year starter Casey Clausen and went into preseason camp with four candidates for the job. Those QBs? True freshman Erik Ainge, true freshman Brent Schaeffer, junior Rick Clausen, and senior C.J. Leak.
Leak was the safe choice — a senior, albeit a guy who had barely played, attempting 102 passes across three seasons at Wake Forest and then UT. His biggest claim to fame was that his younger brother, Chris Leak, was a quarterback at arch-rival Florida and later helped the Gators win a national title.
The smart money lay on either Ainge or Schaeffer getting the job. Both arrived in Knoxville well-regarded, with divergent games. Ainge was more of a prototypical drop back passer, and at 6-6 and 200 pounds, had the prototypical size for the position. Schaeffer was the change of pace: better on the run, the type of hybrid QB who may have flourished in an offense like the spread option Urban Meyer was making popular at Utah at the time.
Clausen, Casey’s little brother, was also in the mix but mostly overlooked during preseason practice.
When the 2004 season kicked off that September against UNLV, Ainge and Schaffer were listed on the depth chart as “co-starters.” And, indeed, they split reps at QB against the Runnin’ Rebels. Still, at the time, the hot rumor in Knoxville was that Tennessee’s coaching staff had recruited Schaeffer on the promise he would start the first game. And, in fact, Schaeffer took the snaps on the opening drive of the game, which ended in three plays after he was sacked and lost a fumble. Ultimately, the Vols won comfortably. Schaeffer threw for slightly more yards and ran for 40, completing one touchdown. Ainge had more completions, three more passes, and had two touchdowns compared to Schaeffer’s one.
Curiously, by the time the 2004 season was over, Tennessee ended up needing Schaeffer, Ainge, and Clausen.
Schaeffer broke his collarbone during a road win at South Carolina in October. Then, at home against Notre Dame in November, Ainge separated his shoulder taking a sack on the final play of the first half. Clausen stepped in, performed adequately against Notre Dame, then quarterbacked the Vols past Vanderbilt and Kentucky (which wasn’t saying much in 2004) and played well in a Cotton Bowl victory over Texas A&M. It spoke to the skill of Randy Sanders, Tennessee’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the time, that he was able to prepare and game plan for three very different starting quarterbacks — each with little to no experience playing major college football — and put all three in position to succeed. Sanders followed what might have been the best season of coaching I witnessed from an offensive play caller and QB coach by getting fired in 2005 after the QB controversy between Ainge and Clausen largely scuttled that campaign.
That Ainge injury sticks with me more than 20 years later. My seat in the press box was close to the box where the coaches’ families watched the game. After Ainge went down, and stared down, I recall those spouses looking at the field in shock. I still think you can draw a throughline from that play — choosing to try and run offense at the end of the half rather than just kneel on the ball — to the sequence of events that led Sanders to get fired, brought David Cutcliffe back to Knoxville, ultimately leading to the dismissal of Phillip Fulmer in 2008, and the subsequent 12 years the Vols spent wandering in the proverbial college football desert trying to find themselves before Danny White hired Josh Heupel.
How will the 2026 quarterback competition shake out? Time will tell. MacIntyre has the benefit of a year’s experience learning the system and spending time on the practice field, but he’s perilously thin in an era when teams are going to be sending 24-, 25-, and 26-year-old defensive lineman on pass rushes. Brandon probably has the most upside and, unlike Ainge and Schaeffer, he enrolled early and has the benefit of getting to go through spring practice. It’s hard to see a scenario where Staub is nothing more than an emergency quarterback; if he ends up on the field in significant situations, Tennessee is probably in deep trouble.
Then again, many people said the same thing in 2004 when Clausen ended up as Tennessee’s main QB.
Just as 2004 represented the peak of Sanders’ skill as a QB coach and play caller, Heupel faces a real test in 2026. The former Heisman candidate himself as a player has fashioned the reputation of building and developing quarterbacks.
In 2026, it’s on Heupel to prove that he lives up to that rep.