Tennessee held its first scrimmage of training camp over the weekend and the buzz out of camp focused mainly on the newcomers excelling on Rocky Top.

While the new faces on campus often generate the most buzz, it’s the program’s most veteran players that will ultimately factor into the success of the program come the fall. No player better accentuates that better than the team’s starting quarterback, Jarrett Guarantano.

Simply put, Tennessee has no depth at the game’s most important position behind Guarantano and considering the strengths of the offense on Rocky Top are mostly found on the perimeter, the offense is likely to go only as far as the junior signal-caller can take them this season.

Entering his first season under the guidance of veteran offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, Guarantano speaks like a coach when asked to share his thoughts on Tennessee’s first scrimmage.

“From the whole offensive standpoint, some good, some bad. We didn’t turn the ball over as the ones, we won a couple of drills and we lost a couple of drills,” Guarantano said. “There are some things that we can learn from and get better from, but all around I think this camp has been really good for the offense and these next two weeks are going to be big for our development.”

Guarantano knows the drill and he’s been around long enough, he’s even starting to sound like Jeremy Pruitt or Coach Chaney when speaking with the media. Now that he is the face of Tennesee’s program, at least from the players’ perspective, for the first in his life, Guarantano acknowledges his sole focus is on improving day in and day out with his four training camp in Knoxville nearing an end.

“I come to this every single day and I say, ‘coach Weinke, I need to get a lot better today.’ I have one goal in mind and he knows that goal, but I’m not going to share it with you guys,” Guarantano continued. “Every single day I’m trying to get better at something. I want to be the best that I can possibly be. That’s what I go into every day looking at. I don’t want to look left and right. I don’t want to look at any newspapers or articles seeing where I’m ranked. I don’t want to see that stuff. I just want to be the best player in the world and I want to be the best player in the country and that’s my everyday goal.”