{"id":1010746,"date":"2026-08-19T12:26:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1010746\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T12:26:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:26:36","slug":"tennessee-football-opponent-furman-names-starting-quarterback-ahead-of-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1010746\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Football Opponent Furman Names Starting Quarterback Ahead of 2026 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Tennessee<\/a>Photo via @Vol_Football on X<\/p>\n

The Tennessee Volunteers will host Furman in Week 1 of the College Football season on Sept. 5, with the game taking place in Neyland Stadium. And it looks like we now know which starting quarterback the Paladins will be rolling into town with.<\/p>\n

According to a report from On3\u2019s Pete Nakos<\/a> on Tuesday afternoon, Furman has named senior Jake Garcia as its starting quarterback for the 2026 season. The Paladins will take on DII program Anderson in Week 0 of the season, giving Garcia a chance to settle into the starting role before traveling to Knoxville the following week.<\/p>\n

Garcia was originally a four-star prospect in the 2021 recruiting class. He spent his first two years at Miami (FL) before transferring to Missouri for the 2023 season. Garcia then spent one season at East Carolina and one season at Michigan before joining Furman as a graduate transfer in his final season of eligibility.<\/p>\n

Garcia has been on the opposite sideline from Tennessee once before, which came during the 2023 season when he was at Missouri. The Tigers won that game by a score of 36-7 in Columbia, MO. He did not play.<\/p>\n

Tennessee was one of 23 teams that offered Garcia a scholarship in high school, according to 247Sports.<\/p>\n

In two seasons with Miami and one with ECU, Garcia has thrown for 2,376 passing yards, 15 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions. He tallied 14 passing attempts as a true freshman with the Hurricanes in 2021, and then had 115 attempts in eight games in 2022. Garcia didn\u2019t play at Missouri, but he did put up career-high stats at East Carolina during the 2024 season. He threw for 1,426 yards, eight touchdowns, and 12 interceptions on 181 passing attempts.<\/p>\n

Garcia only appeared in one game with the Wolverines last year.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-2 journeyman has been all over the map during his collegiate career, and he\u2019s looking to make one last impact during his final season at Furman.<\/p>\n

More From RTI:\u00a0Tennessee Football Practice Notes And Observations: Fall Practice No. 10<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tennessee is going through its own quarterback competition this month, but the winner of that battle has not been announced yet. In what\u2019s been one of the most talked-about position battles of the college football preseason, Tennessee has sophomore George MacIntyre and freshman Faizon Brandon competing for the job.<\/p>\n

MacIntyre and Brandon have been locked in a quarterback battle since the spring. Brandon has no collegiate experience as a true freshman, but MacIntyre only has nine passing attempts to his name. So, from that standpoint, neither is a runaway in the experience category. Heupel and his staff will decide a winner based on training camp progress and season projections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want some guys that don\u2019t make the same mistake twice,\u201d Heupel said to open fall camp earlier this month. \u201cThey\u2019re stacking reps, stacking days and continue to grow as a player. And somebody will go out there and earn it. And once that guy has done that, then we\u2019ll name the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennessee held its first fall camp scrimmage on Saturday, giving the coaching staff a different look at both competitors. To no surprise, Heupel opted not to name his starter that same afternoon. The Vols returned to training camp practices this week but will be back in Neyland Stadium over the weekend for their second and final camp scrimmage. It\u2019s a date that Tennessee could possibly name a starter soon after, with the season just around the corner.<\/p>\n

Furman will open its 2026 season at home in a Week 0 game against Anderson in Paladin Stadium. They will then travel to Rocky Top to take on Tennessee in the Vols\u2019 Week 1 season opener on Sept. 5 at 3:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more Tennessee Football news, notes, and coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo via @Vol_Football on X The Tennessee Volunteers will host Furman in Week 1 of the College Football…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1010747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[284947,1318,404609,284948,1317,1315,1316,62,43860,49224,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1010746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-faizon-brandon","tag-football","tag-furman-paladins","tag-george-macintyre","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-tennessee-football","tag-tennessee-vols","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1010747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}