Tennessee Vols under-the-radar transfer addition viewed by personnel staffers as a potential All-SEC candidate
The Tennessee Vols made some important transfer additions this offseason.
The Tennessee Vols added 21 players from the transfer portal to their roster this offseason.
The majority of those additions came on the defensive side of the ball — due in large part to the Vols replacing defensive coordinator Tim Banks with Jim Knowles.
Tennessee specifically added four transfers from Penn State that played under Knowles last season.
The headliner of that group is easily Penn State transfer EDGE Chaz Coleman, who was named by ESPN this week as the Vols’ best transfer addition of the offseason.
Coleman, however, is far from the only one in that group that has the potential to make a major impact for Tennessee in 2026.
Penn State transfer linebacker Amare Campbell viewed as a potential All-SEC candidate
On Wednesday, 247Sports’ Chris Hummer detailed the transfer portal’s 100 “under-the-radar players to know”.
One of the players that Hummer mentioned is Vols linebacker Amare Campbell, one of Tennessee’s four Penn State transfer additions.
Hummer, who spoke to “dozens” of college football front office staffers, noted that some personnel staffers view Campbell as a potential All-SEC candidate.
“Campbell isn’t a big linebacker at 6-foot, 230 pounds,” wrote Hummer. “But he’s been remarkably effective in stops at North Carolina and Penn State, posting 193 tackles, 22 TFLs and 9 1/2 sacks in his career. He’s not the most popular name among Tennessee’s offseason additions, but personnel staffers look at him as a potential All-SEC candidate.”
Campbell should be able to hit the ground running for Tennessee this spring after playing in Knowles’ defensive scheme last season at Penn State.
“What I saw from Amare was the ability to play in space, and then also inside the box,” said Knowles of Campbell last summer. “So I thought he had a really nice combination of the athletic skills necessary to operate in the open field, but when it came to being tough inside, those are the linebackers that are hard to find. Can they be in space? And then can they defend the straight-ahead run? I saw that on film.”
After Campbell’s first couple of practices at Penn State last fall, Knowles described the former three-star recruit as a “natural linebacker.”
“In two days, I see a lot of natural linebacker skills,” said Knowles. “You don’t see that as much in this day and age of college football because a lot of linebackers are converted from other positions…There’s a skill to playing linebacker that a lot of it is innate and instinctual…a lot of it’s through natural instinct — through things that you can’t teach.”
Linebacker, overall, should be a huge position of strength for Tennessee in 2026 with Campbell, Arion Carter, Jeremiah Telander, Edwin Spillman, Jadon Perlotte, and Jaedon Harmon anchoring that room.
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