It is unfathomable why Pruitt continues to put JG on the field.
From the article:
But Jarrett Guarantano is holding back this Tennessee offense in ways I never thought possible.
Some of Guarantano’s throws Saturday were some of the worst throws I’ve ever seen from an SEC quarterback. Several players were absolutely wide open within 15 yards of him, and he missed them. I can’t explain that. I don’t know who could explain it. You should be able to jar an SEC quarterback from a deep sleep at 3 a.m. and watch him complete those throws.
Guarantano has had trouble finding open players downfield. That’s not good, but it’s the kind of thing you see even at the major-college level from time to time. You can work around that and still be a decent team. You won’t win a championship, but you can win some games.
You can’t work around some of the throws and some of the decisions Guarantano made at The Swamp on Saturday. You just can’t.
The opening moments of Saturday’s second quarter couldn’t be believed despite being seen.
Guarantano was flagged for delay of game to start the quarter. The Vols had a three-minute stoppage of play before going to the line of scrimmage to start that quarter, and they still couldn’t get a play off in time. On literally the next snap, Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney made essentially a perfect play call that created confusion on the back end of Florida’s defense and led to senior tight end Dominick Wood-Anderson running free with absolutely no one within 10 yards of him. He could have caught the ball, stopped, tied his shoes and still had a chance to score an 83-yard touchdown that would have put the Vols an extra-point away from tying the score and silencing The Swamp.
And … Guarantano overthrew him by a wide margin.
You can’t watch that play enough times to make any sense of it. I can’t recall seeing anything like that in an SEC game, let alone a Tennessee-Florida game. There was no one near Guarantano or Wood-Anderson. Plays at this level do not get easier than that.
Vols junior quarterback Jarrett Guarantano (Photo: Caitie McMekin, Knoxville News Sentinel)
Guarantano, to his credit, shook that off two plays later and threw a beautiful strike to senior wide receiver Jauan Jennings to move the chains.
Three plays after that, though, Guarantano misread a Florida coverage and threw a ball 15 yards away from intended receiver Marquez Callaway and 0 yards away from Florida cornerback Marco Wilson.
Florida’s offense mustered only a field goal on the ensuing drive, but every point Tennessee allows on defense is a point the Vols’ offense will struggle to match.
Later in the second quarter, Guarantano and Ty Chandler failed to connect on a simple swing pass with no one anywhere near the running back on a third-and-8 play. It was a check-down throw. Again, a check-down throw. Whether he should have checked it down on third-and-8 is a fair discussion, but there are worse things in the word that a player as fast as Chandler getting the ball in space. But the simplest things have been unfathomably difficult for this Tennessee offense to achieve.
