Jarrett Guarantano Reflects on Struggles, Remaining Time at Tennessee

It was a year filled with adversity for Jarrett Guarantano, and he offers insight on how he has improved

Jarrett Guarantano faced adversity all of 2019, and some of that adversity was self-inflicted. He battled through injury, and he was benched on multiple occasions, but he was determined to come back to Tennessee and make his mark in a positive way to end his college career. He reflected on those struggles and talks about the future here.

Guarantano could have graduate transferred following the 2019 season, and he was asked why he decided to return to Tennessee despite all of the adversity. Guarantano responded, "“I’m looking at a big thing on the wall that says, ‘This is Rocky Top’. I was talking to Bill before and those words and just this place means so much to me. I was thinking about my journey here and there’s no place that I would rather be, honestly. Of course, there’s been ups and downs and in life you experience many ups and downs, so it was nothing for me. There were some things I had to grow and learn from and I wouldn’t undo any of this, honestly. I just tell myself some things about the process, not trying to rush it, but there’s no place I would rather be. I’m lucky to be a Tennessee Vol, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.”

Guarantano belows his second year under Jim Chaney can be beneficial to him, and he said he has found a new level of 'comfort.'

It feels way more comfortable. I feel like my mind’s not going 100,000 different places. I have a pre-snap read, a post-snap read, and being able to really truly understand the offense’s ins and outs, it allows me to move faster, it allows me to see things come open way quicker and deliver the ball more on time and accurately," he said on process everything faster this season.

For Guarantano, the physical tools have never been the problem, but he has struggled mightily to piece it together at a consistent level. He said on striving for more consistency, "Going into February, we wrote down a couple of key things and it was be consistent and lead. I think those were two things that I needed to work on and get better at. That’s been my focus every single day, just going into every day talking about stacking chips with Coach (Chris) Weinke and just being able to grow every single day in a sense of getting better either mentally, physically or just becoming a better football player."

Guarantano added, "Going back to the spring, like I said, I was motivated as ever. I didn’t have the season that I wanted to have last year and going into this one, I know I want to have a big year, so it wasn’t very hard for me to wake up every morning ready to work. I knew that there were a lot of things I wanted to work on, rather that was foot quickness, rather that was accuracy, rather that was ball placement on all my throws, so being able to have a focus every single day and saying I’m going to get better at this certain thing every day, it wasn’t too hard for me. This is something that I’ve learned over time. Probably when I was younger, I wouldn’t have been this way. It kind of takes a sense of maturity and a sense of getting older and being through some things that have brought me to this point.”

Now, he has his chance to make a mark in year two under Jim Chaney, and he offered some specifics on how he has continued to improve, "Just in my game there’s a lot less indecisiveness. There’s the pre-snap read, post-snap read, there’s the communication aspect, there’s being able to talk guys through some things. It’s a complete different sense of feel out there with me I feel like right now. Just in the sense of myself, I feel like I’m more comfortable. I feel like a lot of the guys see that I’m more comfortable and confident in my abilities and the way that I can mentally inject my way into the game. I’ve always felt like I was a smart football player but being able to have Year 2 under the same offense, it allows me to kind of show it a little bit.”