Tennessee again won a football game while using three different players at quarterback.

Redshirt freshman J.T. Shrout started both the first half and the second half of Saturday night's 30-7 win against UAB, but it was Jarrett Guarantano, less than a week removed from having surgery to insert a screw into a broken bone in his non-throwing hand, who went most of the way against the Blazers.

Head coach Jeremy Pruitt discussed Tennessee's plan at quarterback and revealed why freshman Brian Maurer didn't play after his team opened November with a routine victory.

“Because we think it gives us the best chance to win,” he said. “The one guy had surgery on Sunday. It’s cold out there, he’s got a cast on his hand. First time getting out there, you see him in warmups there, and he practiced most of the week there, but the ball was pretty slick the way the air was tonight. If J.T. don’t run across the field and throw it across body back over there when we’re in field-goal range, he might have kept playing.

“There’s some mistakes as a quarterback you can’t make. You might miss a throw. You might not check the ball to the proper side. But you can’t turn the football over in the red area. We can’t make those mistakes.”

Pruitt referenced the third-down play on Tennessee's opening offensive series after Bryce Thompson's interception on UAB's first play of the game. Shrout was flushed to his right and threw back toward the left over the middle of the field into traffic looking for Jauan Jennings. The pass was incomplete and Tennessee kicked a field goal, but it was enough for Pruitt to make the change.

Guarantano, playing with a cast on his wrist and a glove on his hand to help him grip the football, delivered a flawed performance, but Tennessee scored most of its points with him at the helm even Tennessee's offense got plenty of help via good field position from four UAB turnovers.

Though he finished 13-of-21 passing for 147 yards with a touchdown and an interception, Guarantano came up with some timely plays on third down. His scramble for a first down eventually led to Brent Cimaglia's 48-yard field goal to cap his first series of the game, and in the second quarter he hit Marquez Callaway to set up Jennings's touchdown run out of a wildcat formation two plays later. Guarantano converted three third downs through the air on the same drive in the fourth quarter, including the touchdown pass to Eric Gray.

However, Pruitt was miffed by Guarantano's interception in the end zone right before halftime as he threw off his back foot under pressure and UAB's Dy'Jonn Turner came down with the ball, and Shrout started the second half before the Vols went back to Guarantano on the second series of the third quarter.

“We were going to back with J.T. at some point, just kind of the way the game kept going there,” Pruitt said. “We kept getting turnovers that created a short field, so we were going to give Jarrett those opportunities, and when halftime was over with, we decided to go back the other way. The interception absolutely doesn’t help.”

Shrout was 3-of-6 passing for 34 yards, most of his production coming on two completions inside the final two minutes of the game as Tennessee ran out the clock.

Pruitt also explained why Maurer, who started the Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama games but missed the South Carolina games after suffering two concussions in as many weeks, did not play on Saturday night.

“We worked Brian to be ready to play,” the coach said, “but with three quarterbacks, it was hard to get Brian as many reps as he probably needed to be ready, so we elected to go with the other guys today. He’ll have an opportunity to get more reps as we move into it. We’re still kind of seeing where he was at there.”