‘That’s what Jim Knowles has spent the last two weeks doing’ — Vols insider details the upcoming moves by the new Tennessee defensive coordinator
The Vols’ new DC has been making moves behind the scenes to prepare for the 2026 season.
New Tennessee defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has been out of the public eye since the announcement of his hiring to replace Tim Banks, who was dismissed after a rough performance by the Vols’ defense in 2025, earlier this month.
Some might have been wondering about his involvement in the program as it relates to the current team, the bowl game, and his day-to-day tasks, given that the 2025 season was not yet completed at the time of his hire.
According to VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs on “Ramon and Will” on 104.5 The Zone on Wednesday morning, Knowles has been doing a lot of in-house evaluating of both position coaches and players for next season.
Tennessee insider says new Vols DC Jim Knowles has been evaluating the current players and coaching for next season
“That’s what Jim Knowles has spent the last two weeks doing,” Hubbs said. “He’s evaluated his talent. He’s evaluated the coaches at Tennessee currently and decided what he wants to do with his staff and what they want to do in the transfer portal. I think the staff news will go quickly. I think it will happen in the next couple of days. I think they want to try to have their staff almost completely, if not completely, in place by the time the portal opens, or certainly by the time they get to Saturday, when you might start to see some visitors on campuses there around the country. So, I think that part of it will go fast.”
After Tuesday’s defensive performance in a 30-28 loss to Illinois in the Music City Bowl, it’s clear that Knowles has a big job ahead of him to get Tennessee’s defense back to being anywhere in the vicinity of being a playoff-caliber unit. The Vols finished the season about as badly as possible after allowing 45 points and 582 total yards (312 rushing yards) to Vanderbilt and forcing Illinois to punt just once while allowing 5.7 yards per carry and 221 rushing yards against the Illini.
The Vols have some exciting and highly talented young players at all three levels of the defense that Knowles can build around in EDGE Jordan Ross, LB Edwin Spillman, and CB Ty Redmond – provided, of course, they retain them in today’s insane transfer portal/NIL world.
But at this point, nothing feels off the table as far as what Knowles could decide to do for who’s back and who’s coming in. No job is safe, nor should it be. This group failed at all three levels, and nothing made that clearer than the final two months of the 2025 season.
We’ll find out soon enough what the veteran coordinator decides are his first steps towards what fans hope is a better 2026 for the Big Orange.
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