Tennessee Vols coach drops a quote that should scare the rest of the football programs in the SEC

The Tennessee Vols will feature a new-look defense this fall after hiring Jim Knowles to replace Tim Banks as the program’s defensive coordinator. Knowles previously served as the defensive coordinator at Ohio State and Penn State.

Zach Ragan — Tennessee Volunteers News Writer
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Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

When Josh Heupel hired Jim Knowles to replace Tim Banks as the Tennessee Vols’ defensive coordinator, it was immediately pointed out that Knowles’ system can take some time for players to learn.

Knowles’ system has a reputation for being “complicated”.

“It’s complicated. It’s very complicated,” said then Penn State interim head coach Terry Smith of Knowles’ defense last October.

Former Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin made a similar comment before he was fired by Penn State.

“I think the first thing is, there have been obviously some adjustments to what we’re doing on defense, and getting our guys to play confident within the system is still a work in progress,” said Franklin in early October. “I don’t think that’s a question. We’re not playing as fast, as aggressive as we have in the past on the defensive side of the ball.”

In order to expedite the install at Tennessee, Knowles brought along a couple of assistant coaches and players that were previously with him at Penn State and/or Ohio State.

That decision is already paying dividends for the Vols this spring.

Tennessee Vols secondary coach feels good about the install of the defense

Vols secondary coach/co-defensive coordinator Anthony Poindexter spoke to reporters Tuesday after Tennessee’s practice and he made some very encouraging comments about the progress of Knowles’ defensive install.

Poindexter, who coached with Knowles at Penn State in 2025, said the install is “light years” ahead of where it was this time a year ago at Penn State.

“We’re much farther ahead as a defense with the players, [and] as a staff as well,” said Poindexter. “We’ve all been with coach (Knowles) now, at least myself and AJ (Jackson) and a couple other guys, for two years. A couple of the guys have been with coach for a long time. So, now we’re all cohesive. We kind of know what coach wants, how he wants it to look and we are light years ahead of where we were a year ago.”

“I’m just saying that in order for the players to know the defense, the coaches need to know it well, too,” added Jackson. “And they can’t be learning while the players are learning. So right now, myself, the guys that came with coach, we know the defense. So we go to the meetings knowing the answer before he gives us the answer. And that just gives you more confidence as a coach when you’re coaching it to your player. When you know it inside and out, then your delivery is just different.”

If Tennessee’s defense can hit the ground running in 2026, instead of learning on the job like at Knowles’ last two stops (where he didn’t have the luxury of bringing assistants with him), then it could be bad news for the rest of the SEC.

Tennessee’s defense returning to the level of play that we saw in 2024 would take a lot of pressure off the Vols’ offense, making it a little easier to navigate what will be a tough nine-game SEC schedule this fall.

There’s still a long way to go for Tennessee’s defense to get to where it wants to be, but this is certainly an extremely encouraging start for Knowles’ unit.

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