After a six-year collegiate career, former Tennessee and Washington State quarterback Jarrett Guarantano is off to try his hand at the NFL. While Guarantano’s career has been a rollercoaster ride to say the least, former NFL quarterback Jordan Palmer thinks that Guarantano’s best days on the field could still be ahead.
While speaking with The Draft Network, both Guarantano and Palmer unraveled the NFL Draft story a little more.
“He’s all the physical measurables that you would want,” quarterback guru Jordan Palmer said about Guarantano via The Draft Network. “He’s about 6-foot-4, probably runs a low 4.6, he’s really accurate and he’s got a strong arm. I would say he’s got one of the top couple arms in this entire draft class and I understand how strong that statement is. He’s training every day with Carson Strong and Desmond Ridder so I think that’s a really good reference point. He’s one of the biggest secrets of this draft.”
Guarantano’s career at Tennessee was never short on controversy, however, some not being his fault. The former Tennessee quarterback had two different head coaches and a different offensive coordinator in each of his four playing years in Knoxville. While he had future NFL receivers on the board, Guarantano struggled behind an offensive line that was less than good for a long stretch. With that being said, though, Guarantano’s play just wasn’t enough to bring Tennessee to where they wanted to be. Guarantano struggled with his accuracy throughout his whole career at Tennessee, which was especially compounded during moments of poor decision-making.
Some of that is due to the lack of consistency on the Vols’ prior coaching staffs, but there is a lot of film and tape out there on Jarrett Guarantano. In the end, he did finish his career throwing more than 850 attempted passes. And in that collection of tapes, there are moments and games that are not up to the NFL’s standard.
Between Tennessee and Washington State, Guarantano ended his career with 6,478 passing yards, 39 touchdowns, and 20 interceptions.
Biggest steal of the draft? Respectfully, it feels like a stretch.
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“At Tennessee, there were a lot of highs and lows,” Guarantano said in the interview. “There were a lot of great moments and a lot of moments that weren’t so great. But I’ve learned from those ups and downs and have learned how to work through them. In the NFL, that’s all there are, ups and downs. I’m grateful that I’ve gone through that at a younger age because now I feel fully prepared to take on the NFL.”
According to Chrissy Foryd’s article, the former Tennessee quarterback has been working with former Nevada quarterback Carson Strong and former Cincinnatti quarterback Desmond Riddler. And from what Palmer was saying, it does sound like Guarantano is putting in good work and improving.
However, that’s where the problem seemed to often be while at Tennessee. Guarantano routinely won the job and impressed coaches during practice and the preparation steps throughout game week. During the games though, it would look as though Guarantano would get rattled or shaken with the in-game production falling off soon after.
Even though the subpar moments, Guarantano did have a hand in some huge games for the Vols, like finding wins over Auburn and Kentucky.
“His journey is super unique,” Palmer said about Guarantano while speaking with The Draft Network. “I’ve actually been wanting to work with him for three years and I’ve known him since he was in high school. I’ve really watched closely these last few years unfold for him. I think I see something in him that, since he wasn’t invited to the combine, apparently other people don’t see. He’s just had a really weird career and it’s something I’ve seen before – I saw it with Kyle Allen, I’ve seen it with a number of guys where kind of everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. He’s really mature and really experienced as a player. I think he’s a fascinating story and it’s a bummer he didn’t get to throw at the combine because he probably would have been top three in all testing categories.”
There’s no question that Guarantano’s journey is one of the more fascinating and interesting stories from the college football world. A guy who had five offensive coordinators in every year of his playing career is enough to easily grab someone’s attention. But from his collection of work on the college football field, it’s could be true that the Jarrett Guarantano story may be the better secret as opposed to his in-game play.
If Jarrett Guarantano does make it through the draft process and onto an NFL roster, though, his resilience and toughness will be to thank.
