The No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs aren’t expected to face a true challenge until Week 3 when the Bulldogs play the No. 18 Tennessee Volunteers on the road. Georgia is favored to beat Tennessee, who has had a tumultuous offseason after making the College Football Playoff.

The Volunteers lost starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava to the NCAA transfer portal in the spring and had to scramble to find a new starter ahead of the 2025 season. Iamaleava transferred to the UCLA Bruins.

Interestingly, Tennessee found their replacement from UCLA. The Volunteers added quarterback Joey Aguilar, who transferred from UCLA this spring. Aguilar never played a snap for UCLA. He spent the first two seasons of his college career with Diablo Valley Community College (a junior college) before transferring to Appalachian State. He transferred to UCLA after the 2024 college football season, but was only with UCLA in the spring. Now, Aguilar has been named as Tennessee’s starting quarterback.

What will Georgia face in Joey Aguilar? Aguilar is a big, veteran quarterback with a lot of experience (25 starts) from his time at App State. Aguilar has decent mobility and rushed for at least 200 yards and multiple rushing touchdowns in both seasons at App State.

He has two career starts against Power Four opponents entering the 2025 season, so the competition he’s faced is a bit of a question. Aguilar has been productive as a starter.

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The 6-foot-3, 225-pound senior passed for 3,003 yards and 23 touchdowns last season. However, he’s thrown double digit interceptions in each of the past two seasons including 14 picks during the 2024 season. Georgia will try to force Aguilar into mistakes when two SEC rivals meet on Saturday, Sept. 13. Aguilar and Tennessee hope to snap an eight game losing streak against Georgia.

Joey Aguilar stats

2024 (App State): 3,003 passing yards, 23 touchdowns and 14 interceptions

2023 (App State): 3,757 passing yards, 33 touchdowns and 10 interceptions