Joey Aguilar’s first home weekend as Tennessee’s starting quarterback arrived with numbers that travel in any league. 16-of-28 passing for 247 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions in a 45–26 opening win and one of the Manning Award’s Stars of the Week in his debut weekend? That’s a solid start. The box score featured a 73-yard strike to Braylon Staley, the longest pass play in the SEC in Week 1, which matched the tempo of a Vols offense designed to find space and finish drives when timing clicks early in the count.

The road to that moment wasn’t linear. Aguilar rose from junior college to Appalachian State, broke school marks with 3,757 passing yards and 33 touchdowns in 2023. Then he navigated a late‑cycle transfer carousel, briefly aligning with UCLA before landing in Knoxv

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