FUTURE STARS: Faizon Brandon, Tristen Keys Could Play BIG-TIME Roles for Tennessee Football in 2026

Locked On Vols - Daily Podcast On Tennessee Volunteers Football & Basketball

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4.8 • 797 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tennessee Volunteers football faces a pivotal offseason as uncertainty surrounds the quarterback position. Can five-star Faizon Brandon or current freshman standout George MacIntyre seize the starting role, or will Josh Heupel target the transfer portal despite big-money challenges? Eric Cain explores the impact of heralded signees like Tristen Keys, Tyreek King, and Brayden Rouse, highlighting positional battles and where true freshmen talent could break through in 2026. On the hardwood, Tennessee basketball bounces back in style, snapping a three-game losing streak with a dominant win over Louisville. Guest Ryan Schumpert breaks down the defensive turnaround, standout moments from Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Jaylen Carey, and the rotation dilemmas facing coach Rick Barnes. Key insights include super sophomore contributions on defense, linebacker depth concerns, and looming decisions ahead of Music City Bowl and SEC play. Are the Volunteers ready to surge in both football and basketball?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Fais on Brandon, Tristan Keyes, Tyree King, Braden Rouse.
0:04.8	Which freshman that just signed will play the biggest impact for Tennessee next year?
0:10.1	I got some thoughts.
0:16.0	You are Locked on Balls, your daily podcast on the Tennesseeennessee volunteers part of the locked on podcast network
0:23.8	your team every day hey what's up everybody welcome into it your thursday morning locked on balls
0:29.7	i'm your host ericane a member of the volquest dot com team here in town covering your tennessee volunteers
0:34.7	we are a part of the lockeddown Podcast Network where it is your
0:38.6	team every single day, the first or the number one sports podcasting network available.
0:43.7	And I appreciate you guys for tuning in, completely free, listening to the show, watching the show here on YouTube and checking us out.
0:50.2	Got a fun show coming up here today. We got Ryan Shumper coming on in about nine minutes or so to talk a little bit about the big win earlier this week. Tennessee basketball, a much needed win over Louisville, snapping a three-game skid.
1:01.6	We'll talk super sophomores on defense coming up to end the show. But first, you know, we've been kind of looking back as sophomores, and we've already talked about breakout freshmen that were on this year's club.
1:10.4	What about next year? Who were some of the freshmen who just signed that I believe
1:16.8	or that we expect to play big roles for Tennessee football next year? And I think the conversation
1:22.9	obviously starts with Faison Brandon. Now, here's the caveat. And it's the ongoing
1:27.5	conversation. It's the $9 million question, right? Like, what's Josh Hopper going to do?
1:31.8	What's the quarterback position going to look like for Tennessee in the fall coming up? But we don't
1:36.6	know the answer to that right now. We don't know. I think Tennessee is certainly looking at some
1:40.1	options that have become available or that will become available in the transfer portal
1:45.0	and kind of evaluating all that.
1:47.7	Joey Aguilar, I mean, certainly there's not a whole lot of optimism that he's going to get
1:51.7	another year, but again, nothing's set in stone.
1:53.7	I mean, there's no optimism because there's no news, right?
	...

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