Josh Heupel knows better than most what it takes to play quarterback in college at a high level.
To have a chance to perform well on game day, you must first take care of business off the field.
Kaidon Salter didn’t do that, and now he’s off Tennessee’s football team. UT dismissed the freshman quarterback from the program on Thursday following his second off-the-field incident in a little more than three months.
In doing so, Heupel sent a pair of messages: Players who get a second chance best not squander it. And to be a quarterback in Heupel’s program, you better have your act together.
The move also tells me Heupel is comfortable with his four remaining scholarship quarterbacks. Coaches aren’t in the business of dismissing a player facing a misdemeanor drug charge if that player is considered an essential asset.
Quick, smart decision-making is paramount for quarterbacks in Heupel’s up-tempo system. If Heupel can’t trust his quarterback to make good decisions at 3 a.m. on a Saturday in June, then he can’t trust him to make good decisions on third-and-3 on a Saturday in October.
And the coach-quarterback relationship is all about trust.
Salter’s latest transgression is minor as far as arrests go.
Salter, 18, and teammate Amari McNeill face misdemeanor drug possession charges after university police stopped a vehicle Salter was driving around 3 a.m. Saturday for having no taillights and a tinted license plate cover, according to UTPD. Police found a bag containing about four grams of marijuana near the vehicle, and Salter admitted he told McNeill to toss the weed out of the vehicle.
McNeill, a freshman defensive tackle, remains part of the program after his first known offense.
This was not Salter’s first mistake.
Salter’s arrest Saturday occurred less than a month after he’d been reinstated to Tennessee’s program. He was among the four players suspended for the duration of spring practice after a March incident at a campus residence hall.
University police investigated that incident as an assault and burglary before arresting four players and another student on misdemeanor drug charges. Salter, who was then 17, was not named in police records because he was a juvenile. But a person with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed to Knox News that Salter was the juvenile arrested.
Two strikes, and the former four-star prospect who was recruited and signed by former coach Jeremy Pruitt is left to continue his career elsewhere.
Pruitt believed you should treat quarterbacks the same way you treat any other player on the roster. That was foolish.
Being Tennessee’s quarterback makes you the big man on campus when things are going well and reviled on campus when they aren’t. The job comes with a different level of prestige, responsibility and leadership requirements than being an defensive lineman.
Managing the position effectively sometimes requires a light touch. Other times, it calls for a heavy hand.
The position is unlike any other in college sports, and it’s not just the moves you make on the field that are heavily scrutinized. Being an SEC quarterback requires getting comfortable in a fishbowl.
You’re bestowed stature at the price of unrelenting pressure and high expectations. Heupel experienced that first-hand. He was a Heisman Trophy runner-up as Oklahoma’s quarterback in 2000, when he led the Sooners to a BCS national championship.
Tennessee entered the summer with five scholarship quarterbacks. That was a crowd, and at least one quarterback transferring seemed likely.
But no one bolted. And after Salter’s dismissal, no one needs to.
The starting spot remains open, and the four remaining candidates all have starting experience.
Winning the job will require a good arm – and good decision-making.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Tennessee’s Josh Heupel sends message by dismissing QB recruit