On the surface, it seems like Tennessee Football made a straight-up quarterback trade with the UCLA Bruins. The Vols gave up Nico Iamaleava and landed Joey Aguilar. Now, josh Heupel has his guy, who can be a stop-gap signal-caller until he has an open competition next year among Jake Merklinger, George MacIntyre and Faizon Brandon.
Don’t count on that 100 percent, though.
Recent reports by ON3 earlier this week revealed that Merklinger secured a new contract. Meanwhile, Heupel said at the Big Orange Caravan stop in Memphis on Wednesday, “We’ve got the opportunity to have a great competition at the quarterback position.”
Can you look at those quotes and be certain Heupel is sticking with Aguilar?
Look, he probably should. As Will West of WNML The Sports Animal told us on Friday, Aguilar may actually be a better fit for Heupel’s system than Iamaleava was because he’s accurate and gets rid of the ball quickly. Sure, the deep ball isn’t as pretty, but he can do so many other things.
However, Heupel in the past has fallen in love with the big arm and the mobility. There’s picking Joe Milton III over Hendon Hooker, Brandon Wimbush over Dillon Gabriel while with the UCF Knights and going all in for Iamaleava himself. How can we be so sure he won’t do that again?
After all, Merklinger and MacIntyre have better arms than Aguilar, and they take fewer risks. Forget that fact that Heupel’s offense doesn’t put quarterbacks in that many situations to throw interceptions. He seems to misevaluate who is best for his system more than anybody, ironically.
Taking that into account, there’s a real chance Merklinger wins the job. Heck, even MacIntyre could win it. There’s a real advantage to naming one of them the starter with so many young players on offense, as they could all be back in 2026 and have developed a real rapport.
Still, it would hurt Heupel’s desire for open competition in 2026, and there’s a chance they paid Merklinger just a little bit of extra money so he would give them depth and wouldn’t transfer. Also, if they did give Aguilar $1.2 million as reported, it’s hard to see him not starting for Tennessee Football in the Fall.
The most likely scenario is Aguilar starts this year, Merklinger or MacIntyre wins the job in 2027, the other quarterback hits the portal, and Brandon is the quarterback in waiting. As we have seen with Iamaleava, though, anything can happen. That’s why Aguilar starting is no guarantee.
