Greg McElroy breaks down Tennessee QB battle early in spring practice

ESPN and SEC Network analyst Greg McElroy has had his ear to the ground over the past several weeks checking in on Spring football practices all across the country. This week, the former Alabama quarterback got the inside track on several compelling quarterback battles taking place this Spring.

Of course, there are some QB competitions too open to call at this point, even as college teams approach their annual Spring games over the next couple of weeks. That includes in Knoxville, where Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel isn’t giving much away following the Volunteers first scrimmage last week.

“If you’re a college football fan and loves a good quarterback mystery, then Tennessee is probably the program you want to be watching this Spring,” McElroy said during this week’s Always College Football podcast. “Because we’re talking about a three-man race with not a lot of clarity. … The big question is who’s going to be the quarterback in 2026.”

By all accounts, Tennessee’s QB competition is a three-horse race between redshirt freshman George MacIntyre, five-star true freshman Faizon Brandon and redshirt junior Ryan Staub, a Colorado transfer. While Staub is the veteran in the room, MacIntyre has the most experience in Knoxville after appearing in two games while redshirting in 2025.

As the newcomers in the room, Brandon and Staub are trying to unseat MacIntyre and doing so while working behind last year’s No. 3 QB through the early part of Spring. According to McElroy, MacIntyre began Spring taking the early reps with the first-string, followed by Brandon and Staub, in that order.

“Here’s where it gets a little interesting. The rep order in practice is maybe telling us something, even if Coach Heupel is unwilling to,” McElroy said. “In the first practices, it was MacIntrye first, Brandon second and Staub third. That’s kind of significant.”

But as any football fan knows, rep order can certainly change, and based on what McElroy is hearing, the five-star freshman is already turning heads in Knoxville. The 6-foot-4 and 215-pound Brandon landed with the Vols as a Top-10 overall recruit and the No. 3 quarterback in the 2026 cycle, according to the Rivals Industry Ranking. It’s that pedigree that makes Brandon the “wild card” in this QB race.

“Faizon Brandon is kind of the wild card that could change everything for this quarterback competition,” McElroy said. “He was one of the top players in the recruiting class last year. He’s got a live arm, he’s got a college-ready body, he looks physically mature.”

That said, given Heupel’s storied history with quarterbacks, McElroy knows the Tennessee head coach is in no hurry to make a decision, which Heupel made clear earlier this Spring. With that in mind, McElroy believes the Vols QB competition could easily roll into the start of the 2026 regular season.