Logan Marchi Will Be the Best Quarterback On the Field in Knoxville Saturday
ETSU signal caller has proven himself to be a superior player to Tennessee’s Jarrett Guarantano.

Before their seasons began, I told you neither of the major college football programs of northeast Tennessee would have winning seasons.
And after opening weekend, it’s pretty obvious that prediction will hold up.
Optimism reigned supreme for the Tennessee Volunteers entering their opener with West Virginia.
New coach. New . . . , new what exactly again?
For the fourth straight game dating back to last season, the Tennessee Volunteers have lost a game by three touchdowns or more.
And keep in mind the Vols’ traditional soft scheduling in November.
This is a bad football team. With all the hype surrounding new head coach Jeremy Pruitt coming from Alabama and Tennessee’s traditional cheerleader media pumping them up, this was a team even Chris Anderson of eersports.com said could cover against a West Virginia defense believed to be porous.
And then in Tennessee’s first four plays, the Mountaineers trapped the Vols for three losses and one incomplete pass.
The rout was on. 40–14 Hoopies.

Tennessee was so outclassed even their band couldn’t control the atmosphere. Tens of thousands of West Virginians singing “Country Roads” in Charlotte following a 26-point victory and sourpuss coach Dana Holgorsen told the sideline reporter it was the best tradition in college football meant the Vols weren’t just embarrassed on the field, they were embarrassed in the stands.
Whatever happened to all those reporters who said Tennessee would have a crowd advantage? Oh yeah, they identified themselves as insular and lacking in knowledge.
The Vols aren’t just a bad team. They are now a bad program. Some are pointing to the Vols youth, but the only people excited by idea of Jarrett Guarantano starting for the next three seasons are Tennessee’s opponents.
Speaking of bad football programs, East Tennessee State began the Randy Sanders era by playing even with Division II Mars Hill for three quarters.
In the end, the Buccaneers’ superior conditioning as a Division I team playing a Division II won out as ETSU stuffed three touchdowns in to the final 16 minutes and won, 28–7.
Now the two teams play each other for the first time in history. Frankly the lack of enthusiasm surrounding this game speaks to how the two teams are perceived in the area.
It’s David versus Goliath. Without slingshots.
Only this Goliath isn’t the champion of the Philistines. This Goliath isn’t even champion of their own state, as Vanderbilt has taken four of six from the Vols.
The horrible thing for ETSU fans is that if there was ever a time where the Tennessee Volunteers could be had by an FCS team, this is it. But if the Vols do live up to the 98.5 percent probability and defeat ETSU, give credit to the victory not to Pruitt for the first time by Phil Fulmer for the last time.
Fulmer, then a consultant at ETSU, is the one who hand picked Carl Torbush to be the Buccaneers’ head football coach upon the team’s revival. It was the sort of coach you’d expect to be hired by someone who hadn’t worked in college athletics in a decade; choosing someone who was relevant not at the contemporary time (an FCS linebackers coach) but was when Fulmer was at the height of his game 20 years ago (head coach at North Carolina).
Eleven victories and 22 losses later Torbush is retired and ETSU is picked to finish eighth in the Southern Conference. Even the best player Torbush brought in, quarterback Austin Herick, was benched for his senior season in favor of one of the new coach’s transfers.
But that transfer, Logan Marchi, is the best quarterback who will be playing in the game, assuming Pruitt continues to bench the top quarterback on his roster, Keller Chryst. Surely Marchi’s old team, the Temple Owls, wished they had him when they were being defeated by FCS Villanova on Saturday.

Consider-
Marchi has nine touchdown passes against FBS competition in seven starts last season. Guarantano has nine touchdown drives, total, in his entire career. That’s including the four times he handed the ball off to a running back who scored.
Marchi has three times the victories Guarantano does against FBS competition. Four times if you count all competition. Guarantano doesn’t even have a complete game victory in college. He has a half against Southern Mississippi, the same Southern Mississippi ETSU head coach Randy Sanders put 42 points up on last year.
Guarantano put up 10.
In his first college start, Logan Marchi had to face the 11th ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish in South Bend and he threw for 245 yards against them.
Guarantano has never thrown for 245 yards in a college game.
By the way, that 245-yard total against Notre Dame is only Marchi’s sixth highest yardage production in seven complete games in college career.
Marchi is a legitimate hope for ETSU fans. The problem is an FCS team must always deal with a lack of depth when playing an FBS team and the hole Fulmer put the Bucs in by hiring Torbush and not a more contemporary coach.
And just think! Now Fulmer’s the Vols athletic director and hiring Tennessee’s coaches!
Tennessee was the worst team in the SEC last year and may be again. Southern Conference teams don’t beat SEC teams very often but it does happen; witness The Citadel against South Carolina in 2015 and Georgia Southern against Florida in 2013.
The problem is ETSU is worse than those two SoCon schools. But Tennessee’s no better than those vanquished SEC foes.
Marky Billson hosts Tri-Cities Sports NOW 12–2 p.m. ET weekdays on 1420 NBC Sports Radio Tri-Cities. Click the link, or watch his show live or archived here and here.
