Harrison Bailey Set to Get First Start Against Florida

Harrison Bailey signed with Tennessee as a five-star recruit in the 2020 class out of Marietta High School (Ga.). Now, eight games into his freshman season and just roughly 200 miles from home, Bailey will get his first start at quarterback for the University of Tennessee, sources tell VR2 on SI.

Jeremy Pruitt has been protective of giving much information on the quarterback situation over Tennessee's open week. He said on Wednesday, "Harrison will definitely play Saturday. To what extent, we've not decided yet."

Now, it is apparent why, as Pruitt wanted to protect his freshman signal-caller as much as possible. Sources have indicated to VR2 on SI over the last two weeks that Bailey has been taking the vast majority of reps since Guarantano was sidelined due to contact tracing.

Earlier this month, Pruitt said on what he's seen from Bailey, " Just command. When you are comfortable doing something, running an offense, whatever it is, you have confidence. Your peers can see it. You can't fake confidence. It's either natural or it's not, and that's not to take anything away from him, but the more you do something, the more comfortable you get at it and the better you feel and the more confident you are, and you can see that. The simplicity of communicating the calls all the way across the board. You're talking about a young guy sitting here and you got to tell Trey Smith which guy he's supposed to block on this run play right here. 'The MIKE is 42 or whatever, we're working 42.' Just some of that. Nothing different that you see out of any freshman. It's no different than Tamarion McDonald making all the calls in the secondary, or last year Henry To'o To'o when Daniel Bituli was out having to be kind of the quarterback of the defense. It's something that the more you do it, the more you gain confidence in and everybody sees it."

Bailey was certainly hampered by the contact tracing that kept him sidelined for several of the first fall camps, but now, Tennessee has progressed him enough to give him the nod.

The Vols will look to inject some confidence in their program over the next few games with Bailey at the helm.