LOUDON — Joshua Dobbs and Jauan Jennings talk about “the play” all the time.

The former Tennessee football stars reminisce on the last-second 43-yard Hail Mary touchdown Dobbs delivered to Jennings in the Vols 34-31 win at Georgia in 2016.

“We did a cool podcast on it,” Dobbs told Knox News on Friday. “It was an extremely memorable play, obviously. One of Jauan’s favorites and one of my favorites.”

The duo will look back on that moment even more now after Dobbs signed with the San Francisco 49ers and will be teammates in the NFL.

Before the 29-year-old quarterback participates in San Francisco’s organized team activities on April 15, he was in Tennessee for his third annual Astrodinary Charitable Golf Classic at Tennessee National Golf Club. 

The Astrodinary Dobbs Foundation is a grant-making non-profit that helps other charitable organizations with funding and projects that particularly benefit the youth. 

“It’s always awesome to come back home to Rocky Top, to be around the great people of East Tennessee, I never take it for granted,” Dobbs said. “To have tremendous community being built with this (golf) tournament and to be able to impact the community of Knoxville, I don’t take that opportunity lightly.”

Recent visit with the Tennessee football

Dobbs has remained a fan of Tennessee during his seven-year NFL career and said that the program is in a positive place under coach Josh Heupel. 

“I know they have a lot of young players that are going to be emerging, obviously a new quarterback in Nico (Iamaleava) that we’re excited to see get out there and play on the field,” Dobbs said.

During his time in the Knoxville area, Dobbs spent time with the Vols during a practice on April 11. 

“I think just the vibe around them is what I’m really impressed by,” Dobbs said. “The culture that Coach Heupel has built is one that the players are holding each other accountable and usually, when that’s the case, you have a strong team and you’re poised for a strong season.

“I’ll be rocking my orange every Saturday and excited to see the boys go to work.”

Dobbs said that he’s spoken with quarterback Nico Iamaleava and that they had a throwing session a couple of months ago. He said that the sophomore quarterback “knows what he’s doing” and they didn’t need to discuss much football.

Rejoining former Vol teammate Jauan Jennings 

Dobbs signed a one-year deal with the 49ers and said he’s excited to join a franchise that lost in the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs. 

Dobbs is especially excited to reunite with Jennings, a Tennessee teammate for two years. The duo have trained together in Dallas and in Knoxville. 

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“It’s been good to have a familiar face, a teammate, a guy that you know, to be able to help you start learning the offense so you can hit the ground running,” Dobbs said. 

Dobbs is coming off a season during which he made a career-high 12 starts and finished with 2,464 passing yards, 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. 

He started the 2023 season as a member of the Cleveland Browns and was traded during the preseason to the Arizona Cardinals, starting the first eight games for an injured Kyler Murray and traded again to the Minnesota Vikings to replace Kirk Cousins, who had a season-ending Achilles injury.

Toyloy Brown III is a Knox News sports reporter. Email toyloy.brown@knoxnews.com. On X, formerly Twitter, @TJ3rd_.