How faith, focus and a new family have Joey Aguilar and Tennessee on pace for another CFP slot

If (when?) somebody makes a biopic about the life of Joey Aguilar, the wandering quarterback turned Tennessee darling, the key scene will take place on a lonely BART train running through Antioch, California. It’s there that Aguilar sat, alone, uncertain of his football future, and it’s there that he found the strength, and the faith, to restart a career that’s culminated with him ranking among college football’s elites.

From an empty train car to the center of a 100,000-seat stadium. It’s quite the journey Aguilar is on. Next stop: Tuscaloosa, Alabama and a Third Saturday date with the Crimson Tide.

Aguilar is one of the best of the new breed of portal-era quarterbacks, wandering samurai with cannon arms in search of a home. How he got to the point where he’s quarterbacking the No. 11-ranked Tennessee Volunteers is a great story; what he does next could be even better.

Growing up in Antioch, Aguilar — the middle child of five — started out his football life playing linebacker and idolizing the Steelers’ Troy Polamalu. Along the way, he absorbed the lessons of his parents Jose and Lydia. “Your dreams can come true, you’ve just got to work for them,” Lydia says. “It doesn’t always fall into place, but usually people get to where they want to be because they work hard.”

Aguilar played quarterback at Freedom High School in nearby Oakley, and his high school story was a common one — a Friday night star, but no looks from the schools playing on Saturdays. He enrolled at City College of San Francisco, but didn’t see the field. As he rode back and forth to CCSF, a 90-minute train ride each way, he descended deep into his thoughts, wondering if football was even the right move for him any longer.

“It was hard for me to see him at his low moments,” Lydia recalls, “questioning if he’s really good, if he can continue to do this. My husband and I kept telling him, You just have to keep going. You have to show everyone who you are, and they will eventually see.”

Roger Wimmer/ISI Photos via Getty Images

It took awhile. He lost another season to the pandemic in 2020, but then enrolled at Diablo Valley College for two years, playing well enough to draw the attention of Appalachian State, the next rung up the ladder. In his first year at Appalachian State, he set school single-season records for both yardage and touchdowns, and his 33 touchdowns ranked fifth in the nation behind three quarterbacks now starting in the NFL (Bo Nix of Oregon, Jayden Daniels of LSU, and Michael Penix Jr. of Washington). After another year at Appalachian State, he cruised in the wake of the Diego Pavia decision, winning an extra year of eligibility and using it to vault from App State back to California and UCLA.

That didn’t last, though, as shortly after Aguilar arrived at UCLA, so too did Nico Iamaleava, fresh from an infamous spring fallout in Knoxville. With his ceiling lowered, and an opening available in Tennessee, Aguilar opted to move back east … and the payoff has been both immediate and immense.

“Joey, coming in May,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said in August, “having to learn the offense throughout the late spring, summertime, getting his feet on the grass with our guys, learning how we practice, but also growing each day, just continued to trend upward in his comfort and control, and command, of what we’re doing.”

Lydia credits both Aguilar’s determination and his faith for seeing him through the many stops of his journey. “He's like, This is where He wants me to be,” Lydia says. “He had me go through the journey. He had me go through all these obstacles. He sent me to L.A. for whatever reason to be able to bring me to Tennessee for where I was supposed to be.”

Aguilar speaks freely of his faith, noting that “it helped me a lot, especially through that time of juco, not knowing if I wanted to play or not,” he says. “Playing juco, transferring to App State, being away from family … it kept me mellow and always had me knowing I have somebody to talk to whenever I was down and really by myself.”

He’s not by himself much these days. Ever since his debut, when he led Tennessee to a dominating win over Syracuse in Atlanta’s cavernous Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and his first time in Neyland Stadium, when he ran through the T for the first time, he’s won the love and gratitude of Vol fans. At that first game, cameras captured Lydia, tears streaming down her face as she watched her boy in his moment.

“For me, it was like, finally, you are here where you’ve always wanted to be, and where you dreamt that you could be,” she says. “And here you are, son, in the SEC, you’re on the biggest stage of all time. And I'm surrounded by 102,000 people that are just rooting for him.”

Aguilar has given Volunteer fans plenty of reason to cheer. Tennessee is 5-1, its lone loss an overtime defeat at the hands of then-No. 6 Georgia. His 1,680 yards passing lead the SEC, and his 14 touchdowns rank second only to the 16 of Alabama’s Ty Simpson.

“It’s been amazing,” Aguilar said recently. “All the stress that we did to come here is gone, and we have the ability to go out there and just play for Tennessee and the fans.”

“He loves Tennessee,” Lydia says. “He loves the people. He loves the coaches. He loves the school. He loves his teammates. He loves everything about it.”

“What I love about him is, whether it's good play, bad play, good series, bad series, same demeanor,” Heupel said recently. “Coming off on the sidelines, he goes and approaches the next play, next series the same way. He's aggressive, but playing smart football. … That’s one of a lot of elite traits that he has.”

Aguilar’s play has landed him on the lower reaches of the Heisman leaderboard at +3000. His draft prospects are a bit more spotty — recent Tennessee quarterbacks like Hendon Hooker and Joe Milton haven’t fared well in the NFL — but to even bring the NFL into the conversation is a thrill to Lydia.

“How many kids, when they start walking and talking and learn about football, want to be an NFL player? It's every kid's dream,” she says, but insists that the entire family is taking a “next play mentality." 

“If it keeps going and draft day comes and he’s in the draft and he gets picked," she continues, "we’re rolling with it.”

Before then, there’s a whole lot of high-stakes football to be played, including a potential return to the College Football Playoff for Tennessee. Aguilar’s level-headed mentality appears a perfect fit for a Heupel offense and the ever-increasing expectations of Vol Nation.

“Good plays happen, bad plays happen,” Aguilar says. “You just gotta keep pushing through, and just keep smiling, and keep winning.”

He’ll get his next chance Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium. And if he’s able to keep smiling after that, he’ll have a whole new wave of fans well beyond Knoxville.