Josh Heupel Provides Update on Brian Maurer

After a cryptic Instagram post on Tuesday night, Brian Maurer was not at practice on Wednesday morning. Following Tennessee's first scrimmage of fall camp, Head Coach Josh Heupel provided a brief statement on Maurer today.

"Had an initial conversation with him a few days ago about how the reps are going to be divided up," Josh Heupel said. "No further update on him. We will have further conversation with him during the open day."

Heupel would later go on to say that Maurer also did not participate in today's scrimmage, and would not provide comment when asked if Maurer was still a part of the team, remaining that he would have conversation with the quarterback and provide an update after the off day on Friday.

Maurer has played in 12 games for the Volunteers, including four starts as a freshman. However, according to one source around the program, Maurer was informed over the weekend that he would not remain a major factor for Tennessee in the position battle as the staff looks to consolidate more reps and identify a starter in the coming days, which is something Alex Golesh stressed during his media day press conference before fall camp. 

“To me, there's a huge sense of urgency,” Alex Golesh said about identifying a quarterback before fall camp started. “You want to start gearing and shaping the offense towards who that guy is and having a plan for who the next one is. Because you obviously have to prepare, you have a plan A and then you got to have a plan B and this time, this COVID thing is still real, so you have to have a plan C. Maybe a plan D even. So, I would like to get a pecking order as fast as we can. We're going to give all of those guys a really honest fair shake at this thing early. And then the pressure is on to at least get your top two to a point where you can start to split those reps. We'll have a really good idea. Like I said, a week or week and a half is my goal, to at least have a top two, maybe three, narrowed down to a top two.”