By Mark Nagi
The Tennessee Volunteers have gone through a lot of changes this offseason, and nowhere is that more evident than on the defensive side of the football.
Jim Knowles takes over for Tim Banks as defensive coordinator. This marks a significant change for head coach Josh Heupel, as his dismissal of Banks was the first time in his tenure at Tennessee that he fired an assistant coach.
Over the last six seasons, Knowles’s defenses have been ranked in the top 15 nationally four times. The reason for that success isn’t very complicated.
“Good players, number one. It’s always the players,” said Knowles. “But two, it’s having answers. That is the most critical thing: having answers. Because you’re always going to get into situations in a game where you have to have an answer for how they’re hurting you and how they’re attacking you, or where you’re going to go week-to-week in college football or how offenses change. That’s my job. I think that’s why it has worked, why our stop rate has been so good, is because we’re going to have answers. We’re going to have answers to anything an offense can do to us.”
Familiarity has proven to be very important for coaching staffs, and Knowles made sure to bring some familiar faces with him to Knoxville. Most recently, Knowles was in charge at Penn State. Two coaches on the Nittany Lions defense under Knowles in 2025 made the trek south in co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Anthony Poindexter and LEOs coach Andrew Jackson.
“We can go faster than other situations that I’ve been in, because of the fact that we have a lot of coaches who have worked with me before,” said Knowles. “That’s a huge advantage. Definitely faster than other places.”
“I know you guys see him between the lines, he looks like he’s just a crusty old man, but he actually has a big personality,” said Jackson. “He’s one of the funniest people I’ve been around. Good person, good human being. He loves what he does, loves teaching. He’s just a perfect leader of men. He helped me through a turmoil I was going through when my mom passed last season in February. He basically gave me something to do to get past that. Opportunity to come to Tennessee, a great place, and to work with Coach Heupel.”
“Coach Knowles is a brilliant mind when it comes down to defense,” said Poindexter. “I was honored that he wanted me to come with him. I’ve known him for a long time, but not like I knew him in 2025. I just want to be around good people. I mean, the staff he has put together is excellent, so I’m excited to be here… We have a lot of experience. A lot of guys that have been in different conferences, been around different players, and we’ve already meshed well together quickly. I’m excited to be with this staff. There’s a lot of really good coaches in our room. Knowles is a great leader of men and coaches, so I’m excited.”
That staff includes cornerbacks coach Derek Jones. A former assistant at Virginia Tech, Jones coached on Knowles’ staff at Duke from 2010-17. Defensive line coach Rodney Garner and linebackers coach William Inge are also on this defensive staff, both retained by Knowles.
We’ve talked about those Vols/Penn State connections, and that doesn’t just apply to the coaching staff. In 2026, the transfer portal is now a huge part of every offseason. Four former Nittany Lions players have transferred to Tennessee. Redshirt sophomore defensive linemen Xavier Gilliam and Chaz Coleman, senior linebacker Amare Campbell, and junior defensive back Dejuan Lane will each get their first taste of the SEC this season. Coleman potentially could make the biggest impact immediately.
“He’s explosive. He is difficult to block,” Knowles said of Coleman. “He has a little bit of an invisible cloak, where he can twist and turn, beat guys one-on-one. He has great initial quickness off the ball. He’s a guy that can create havoc for an offense and really creates a matchup issue.”
