Photos: Kate Luffman / Tennessee Athletics
Unless you’re living with your head in the sand, you know or at least expect by now that Faizon Brandon will get the first shot at running Tennessee’s offense this season. Granted, things could change drastically during fall camp, and that’s worth recognizing. But according to most local guys with actual knowledge, it’s Faizon’s job to lose even if they won’t come right out and say it.
So that leads us to this. What should we expect this season to look like if we do indeed plan to start a true freshman at QB all year? What has the past taught us within the Vols program and other programs around the nation? Can a true freshman QB really take a team by the reins and win big? Let’s get right into it.
The 2026 version of the Vols will most likely be a roller coaster that Vols fans are all too familiar with. Call me skeptical, but when was the last time you saw a Tennessee true freshman QB come right out of the gate in Game 1 and light the world on fire in September? I’ll give you a hint: you haven’t. The Brent Schaeffer/Erik Ainge combo is the only early-season example you’ll even find, and that took a month into the season to get fully sorted out on who the starter should be. We are in mostly uncharted territory at this program if Faizon does get the nod as expected. Even Peyton took half the year to get it figured out before he took Vol Nation by storm the rest of his career here. Tyler Bray slung it around as a freshman only after over half the season was over. The “Ice Man” Clausen was a baller as a freshman and one of the most successful of anyone, but you guessed it—he didn’t start early in the season.
This team doesn’t have the luxury of waiting on a quarterback to develop for half the season with a road game at Georgia Tech and a massive showdown with Texas before September ends. Chances are those stat lines look bumpy, and all you can hope is that a young QB doesn’t start seeing ghosts by the time the calendar flips to October and you get into the meat of SEC action. An experienced line and weapons all around should take some of the heat off him having to do it all right out of the gate. But don’t make the mistake of thinking he can just hand it off and throw screens and everything will be sunshine and rainbows. He will have to stretch the field and make big plays early and often or this offense will get stuck in the mud, like we’ve seen before when we don’t stretch the field.
Now it’s not all doom and gloom. We’ve seen true freshmen around the nation come out and light it up, and Faizon was a consensus top-10 recruit for a reason. If you turn on the high school tape it jumps off the screen—you can tell pretty easily the guy is capable of doing it all. Coach Heupel has shown he can take a guy like Dillon Gabriel and have a monster season already, so who’s to say Faizon doesn’t come out hot and have a big year with all these weapons?
Hope all we want. It’s the season of hope. Just don’t expect it to go down without any issues. History tells us we’re about to go down a bumpy road.