The Tennessee quarterback competition officially has a winner. The Vols are naming freshman Faizon Brandon their starting quarterback heading into the 2026 season, sources confirmed to GoVols247 on Monday morning. Brandon and sophomore George MacIntyre had been locked in an offseason battle that goes back to February when 2025 starter Joey Aguilar was denied an injunction in his lawsuit seeking an extra year of eligibility and a return to the Vols, but head coach Josh Heupel informed the team of the decision during a team meeting on Monday morning.
Brandon will be the first true freshman starting quarterback for Tennessee since 2004, when Brent Schaeffer edged Erik Ainge in a similar battle of young quarterbacks before the two split time for much of that season under Phillip Fulmer.
The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder from Greensboro, North Carolina, first turned heads during spring practices and gained ground on MacIntyre, who appeared in two games and attempted nine passes during his freshman season as the No. 3 quarterback behind Aguilar and Jake Merklinger.
Brandon, the No. 3 overall prospect in the 2026 recruiting cycle – he was No. 1 for much of it – who only turned 18 years old on June 1, then turned in a strong summer and was the better quarterback in both preseason scrimmages.
The five-star freshman came to Tennessee in January after a stellar prep career at Grimsley High School, where he was 35-1 as a starting quarterback after taking over during his sophomore season. He completed over 72% of his passes and totaled 6,374 yards and 79 touchdowns. A true dual-threat quarterback, Brandon added 1,261 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns during his Grimsley career, which was capped by state championships in his junior and senior seasons.
Brandon, who last lost a start during the playoffs of his sophomore season in 2023, missed much of his senior season due to a thumb injury he suffered in the first game. He returned in the postseason and was 12-of-14 passing for 227 yards with three first-half touchdowns in the second round of the playoffs. In the state championship game victory, Brandon was just 8-of-18 passing, but threw for 126 yards with a touchdown and ran for 65 yards and another score.
As a junior, Brandon was the Gatorade Player of the Year and MaxPreps Player of the Year in North Carolina after completing 191 of 277 passes for 3,026 yards and 36 touchdowns with just three interceptions plus 528 rushing yards and nine touchdown runs in 2024.
Tennessee first offered Brandon in June 2023 after watching him perform at a camp, and he was the priority quarterback target for the Vols well before he became the No. 1 player in the 2026 cycle in April 2024. The early evaluation and effort from Josh Heupel, Joey Halzle and Tennessee paid off when he committed to the Vols on August 3, 2024, ahead of his junior season. Brandon chose Tennessee over Alabama, LSU and NC State.
Brandon is the fifth different starting quarterback Tennessee will have in six season openers under Heupel after Joe Milton III (2021 and 2023), Hendon Hooker (2022), Nico Iamaleava (2024) and Aguilar (2025). Although Aguilar had to beat out Merklinger to win the job after arriving in mid-May last year, this was Tennessee’s truest quarterback competition since Heupel’s first season in 2021. Milton beat out Hooker in preseason camp before Hooker took over for an injured Milton in the second game of the season.
The Vols led the SEC in scoring with veteran transfers Hooker in 2022 and Aguilar in 2025, but did reach the College Football Playoff in 2024 with redshirt freshman Iamaleava running the offense.
Heupel won 10 games and put up big offensive numbers with a true freshman quarterback in his second season at UCF in 2019, when Dillon Gabriel took over in the second game of the season and went on to throw for 3,653 yards and 29 touchdowns for an offense that was second nationally in yards per game, fifth in scoring and eighth in passing.
Brandon will man the controls of a Tennessee offense returning eight starters, including All-SEC running back DeSean Bishop, reigning SEC Freshman of the Year Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews at wide receiver and five offensive linemen.
The Vols open the season against Furman at Neyland Stadium on Sept. 5 (3:30 p.m., SEC Network+/ESPN+) before heading to Georgia Tech for a night game in Week 2.
