Jeremy Pruitt and his coaching staff have been on the hunt to add a grad transfer quarterback. And after missing out on a couple early targets, they were able to land their top target with the most Power Five experience.
Stanford grad transfer QB Keller Chryst will officially be joining Tennessee’s roster according to 247Sports. He will be graduating from Stanford in June and will enroll in Tennessee after that. He’s expected to be a full-go for fall camp.
Chryst tweeted out a “Go Vols!” from his Twitter account late last night to more or less confirm the news.
Go Vols! pic.twitter.com/w0glSynHnS
— Keller Chryst (@KellerChryst) March 2, 2018
During his time at Stanford, Chryst appeared in 23 games and started 13 of them. He started the final six games of the 2016 season and was named the starter to begin the 2017 season. But an injury sidelined him, and Stanford’s coaches tabbed K.J. Costello to replace him. Chryst returned from injury, but the coaches kept Costello in and are sticking with him moving forward.
In his Stanford career, Chryst completed 55.4 percent of his 289 pass attempts for 1,926 yards, 19 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He also ran for 164 yards and three touchdowns on 66 carries.
The Vols have just two scholarship quarterbacks on their roster with a third joining them after the spring. Rising redshirt sophomore Jarrett Guarantano and rising sophomore Will McBride will be the only two scholarship quarterbacks on the roster when Tennessee begins spring practices later this month. Freshman J.T. Shrout will join the roster after spring.
But now, Tennessee will have a much more experienced quarterback on the roster joining the mix.
Chryst’s 13 career starts almost doubles the career starts of Tennessee’s two other experienced QBs on the roster. Guarantano made six starts last season, and Will McBride made one start.
We will have more analysis on Chryst’s impact in the days to come.
