What’s wrong with Jarrett Guarantano?

Since SEC Media Days, Jeremy Pruitt has made it clear Tennessee’s QB1 is Jarrett Guarantano.

Despite the redshirt junior’s shortcomings to start the 2019 season — Guarantano ranks ahead of only Auburn freshman quarterback Bo Nix among SEC starters, per Pro Football Focus — the Vols’ head coach doubled-down on his belief in Guarantano earlier this week.

“There’s no doubt, if you’ve been around our program for the last six months who the best quarterback on our team is,” Pruitt said.

He's right.

Brian Maurer and JT Shrout are no where near ready. Guarantano is the guy at Tennessee, but the question for Vol Nation is why has their quarterback taken such a step back in 2019?

This was supposed to be Guarantano’s breakout year. Nearly every offseason headline suggested as much. The offensive line is deeper. The running game is better. Guarantano effusively praised Jim Chaney all summer and bragged about all his "answers."

And yet, Tennessee’s redshirt junior has regressed thus far to start the 2019 season.

Why?

Chaney is the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the country, so it’s his job to truly answer that, but research suggests some troubling trends for Tennessee’s quarterback through two games.

Coming into his third year as the starter, Guarantano had a defined skill-set. He was a tough, mostly accurate and risk-averse. He’s never been great at feeling pressure or anticipating throws, but it hasn’t been a huge hindrance because he didn’t turn the ball over.

Guarantano was also very efficient on play action passes — especially down the field.

In 2018, his average yards per attempt was 9.5 on play-action throws, compared to 6.8 on standard drop-backs. He threw five touchdowns off play-action and completed 64 percent of the throws.

That's very good.

He entered the season as the SEC’s No. 3 most efficient play-action passer, ranking behind only Tua Tagovailoa and Jake Fromm.

Well, much of that has changed for the New Jersey native so far through two games.

Jarringly so.

Through Tennessee’s 0-2 start, Guarantano rates as the third-worst play-action quarterback in the SEC, ranking ahead of only Nix and Arkansas’ Ben Hicks. His yards per attempt have dipped to 6.0 and his completion percentage has dropped all the way to 45.8 percent.

With Tennessee’s run success against BYU, Chaney dialed up play-action passes on nearly 55 percent of Guarantano’s throws last Saturday. Guarantano went just 7 of 16 for 114 yards — 51 yards coming on a nice pass to Jauan Jennings.

But the windows were open for multiple other big plays, yet Guarantano simply didn’t see them or was late with the ball.

This is almost an identical play as the one that went 51 yards to Jennings. BYU is in a deep Cover-3 shell and the Vols run four verts. For whatever reason, Guarantano doesn’t recognize the coverage and never looks at Jennings until it’s too late.

The most concerning takeaway here is that Tennessee needs — and expected — Guarantano to be dynamic as a play-action passer in this offense. The simplest reasoning is protection is normally better on such passes and Guarantano has never been Peyton Manning has a drop-back quarterback.

In 20 career-starts, six of his seven career interceptions have come on standard drop-backs, per PFF. Both picks this season have come on standard throws, as have several passes that could’ve been intercepted.

Which leads me to another glaring concern through two games: Guarantano’s inaccuracy on throws between the numbers.

Chaney all but stopped calling passes late in the third quarter against BYU after Guarantano threw the ball into triple-coverage earlier in the period.

Here’s Guarantano’s passing chart in 2018.

He threw the ball over the middle of the field a lot last season. I’ll save you the math, too, as his completion rate was at 73% on such throws. Notably, all three interceptions last season came on such passes but so did seven of his 12 touchdowns.

This is Guarantano’s passing chart through two games this fall.

He’s actually pushing the ball downfield a bit more but his completion percentage has tanked, down to 61%. Also, two of his three touchdowns passes between the numbers were throws into traffic that could’ve been turnovers had Jennings not made the play each time.

Senior wideout Marquez Callaway admitted Tuesday that the confidence level on offense is “a little low right now.”

How could it not be?

If the Vols keep missing play-action shots and don’t trust their quarterback to throw between the numbers then the unit because much easier to defend. The Vols can't abandon either aspect of the passing game, either, especially considering Jennings is one of the team's top playmakers and does his best damage between the hashes.

Guarantano has the tools to turn his slow start around. He’s done it before. He’s not the reason the Vols are 0-2, but his poor play is a factor in them being winless.

Callaway made it clear the team is totally behind Guarantano, and they’re trying to help him come out of whatever funk he’s in to start the 2019 season.

“Jarrett is a self-starter. We’re just here for his support. Whatever we need to do, a pat on the butt, tell him to pick his head up,” Callaway said.

“He knows that we’re an outlet for him. He knows that we got his back.”