As Joey Aguilar will try to get Tennessee into playoff contention after overtime loss to Georgia.
Nico Iamaleava will try to help UCLA avoid winless season after blowout loss to New Mexico.
Joey Aguilar carved up Kirby Smart’s defense, but Vols couldn’t finish.
KNOXVILLE, TN – The disguise slipped off around the time Joey Aguilar carved through Georgia’s defense for a third consecutive touchdown drive with a few minutes still left in the first quarter.
No more, must we say No. 15 Tennessee losing Nico Iamaleava to UCLA could be a blessing in disguise.
Forget the disguise. There’s no hiding the truth anymore. Tennessee losing Iamaleava and gaining Aguilar is an unmistakable blessing, a fact to which Georgia can attest.
No. 3 Georgia survived, 44-41, in overtime, but only after absorbing a blitzkrieg of offense fueled by Aguilar.
The recruiting rankings would have told you there’s no way Aguilar would be a better SEC quarterback than the blue-chip Iamaleava.
UCLA decided in April it wanted Iamaleava, not Aguilar, as its starting quarterback after Iamaleava decided to duck out of Tennessee. Bruins coach DeShaun Foster badly misjudged that decision. UCLA is on pace for an 0-12 season after getting blown out by New Mexico in front of a sparse crowd at the Rose Bowl.
A sell-out crowd of 101,915 at Neyland Stadium witnessed Aguilar magic, only to have their soul sucked out after the Vols squandered multiple opportunities to put Georgia away.
In defeat, did Joey Aguilar just launch a Heisman Trophy campaign?
Aguilar spent the past two seasons starting for Appalachian State. He led the nation in interceptions last season for a mediocre Sun Belt team, then headed back to his home state of California.
Asked about his journey from being UCLA’s first-string starting quarterback for a few offseason months to twisting Kirby Smart’s defense into a pretzel, Aguilar smiled, but he passed on the opportunity to drive the dagger home, just as Tennessee failed to twist the knife into Georgia.
“The main goal is this team, and not just me,” Aguilar said. “I know it’s a great story and stuff like that, but my main focus is to do my job and help my team win games.”
Can a Heisman Trophy candidacy begin in defeat? To the extent it can, it did for Aguilar.
He completed all 14 of his pass attempts throughout a first quarter in which Georgia’s defense might as well have been sail-gating on the Tennessee River, for as much good as it did resisting Aguilar’s blur of offense. He finished with 371 yards passing, four touchdowns and an additional rushing touchdown.
Iamaleava explained before the season he transferred for family reasons, and although he mostly botched the transfer process, no one should doubt his commitment to family. He walked away from a playoff contender, coached by a proven quarterback developer, in favor of playing close to home for one of the nation’s worst Power Four teams.
All the better for Heupel. He’s free of Iamaleava and the accompanying drama. No longer do the Vols need to worry about their quarterback squeezing them for a raise he didn’t earn through performance.
Now, Heupel’s biggest concern is fixing a defense that allowed 502 yards to Georgia.
Playoff in play for Vols, winless season in play for Nico Iamaleava, UCLA
Iamaleava said after the Bruins’ latest loss that “we’re not playing at our best,” and it’s true that if UCLA had played up to ability, it could have lost to New Mexico by only a couple of scores instead of by 25 points.
Aguilar said he left “a lot on the table’ against Georgia, and it’s true he threw two interceptions while showing some of his riverboat gambler nature. A potential third interception turned into a touchdown after Aguilar launched a deep ball late in the third quarter.
Calling it a 50-50 ball would be a generous assessment, but Tennessee’s offense had slipped into a mid-game rut, so why not try a downfield shot that, even if intercepted, would flip the field as well as a punt? YOLO!
High in the air, Aguilar’s pass traveled, while Georgia’s Daniel Harris maintained positioning for an interception.
High in the air, the fireworks shot, after Chris Brazzell II’s improbable reception for a touchdown.
Brazzell got away with a bit of contact, Harris fell to the turf, the ball dropped into Brazzell’s hands, and Tennessee’s scoring machine reignited.
Fortunately for Georgia, its quarterback Gunner Stockton penned the prologue to his own Heisman campaign, matching Aguilar completion for completion while the teams traded scores.
Stockton’s fourth-down touchdown strike to London Humphreys and ensuing 2-point conversion tied the game shortly before the two-minute warning. An incompletion would have put Tennessee on the doorstep of victory.
The Vols got to the doorstep anyway minutes later after Aguilar moved the chains with a third-down dart to the sideline during a drive that ended in a missed 43-yard field goal.
Since the first quarter, it felt like the team that had the ball last would win this game. Georgia won the overtime coin toss and, sure enough, chose to go on offense second.
The Vols converted an overtime field goal. That put too much reliance on a Tennessee defense helpless to stop Georgia.
“It was a tough loss to a great team,” Aguilar said. “We just gotta finish.”
Tennessee blew this game, and Kirby Smart felt sheepish about accepting a victory he wasn’t convinced his team deserved. The loss damages the Vols but doesn’t sink them. Only two ranked opponents remain on Tennessee’s schedule, and its offseason quarterback swap now can be ruled a blessing in plain sight, not in disguise.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.