Tennessee Takes Another Big Swing
What to make of Josh Heupel's decision to hire veteran defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
A lot of Vol Nation wanted to see Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel make a bold move this offseason following the Volunteers’ blowout season-finale loss to in-state rival Vanderbilt inside Neyland Stadium. Heupel, now going into his sixth season on Rocky Top – man alive, does time fly – decided to move on from longtime Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks. (Note: Banks was not out of work for very long, as former Tennessee offensive coordinator and new Auburn head football coach Alex Golesh swiped up the veteran defensive coach to coach safeties on The Plains next season.) That happened on Monday, and by the middle of the week, Heupel found Banks’ replacement in former Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who stifled Heupel and the Vols’ offense in Columbus in the first round of the College Football Playoff last season with the Buckeyes. Interestingly enough, the Vols’ last two defensive coordinators have arrived in Knoxville via Happy Valley.
With the hiring of one of the most well-regarded and biggest names in the sport to run his defense in 2026, Heupel is taking a big swing for the fences to fix a defense that ranked 14th in the SEC in scoring defense. Knowles was the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the sport last year with the Nittany Lions. Obviously, things imploded early for James Franklin and Penn State, who had national-championship expectations heading into the season. However, Knowles coached the No. 1 defense in the land the previous season at Ohio State and won a national championship. The year prior, the Buckeyes were ranked first nationally, as well, according to CFB Graphs. In his last season at Oklahoma State in 2021, his Cowboys ranked No. 5 overall in defense. Outside of this season at Penn State, Knowles hasn’t coordinated a defense outside the top-10 on CFB Graphs in FBS since 2019.
It’s a worthwhile swing for Heupel, to say the least.
With the hiring of Knowles, Heupel has now made bold moves in back-to-back offseasons. Last offseason, Heupel added new wrinkles to his offense, particularly the passing game. Going into last offseason, the sentiment from Vol Nation was similar to this year’s, just on different sides of the ball. The Vols were 55th in scoring against ranked competition last season and 77th in passing offense as a whole. After back-to-back seasons of below-average production through the air, it felt like Heupel needed to make some big-time adjustments last offseason to get the passing game humming similar to the way it did in 2021 and 2022.
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To Heupel’s credit, he and his staff made the adjustments. Chris Brazzell II could be a first-round draft choice in the 2026 NFL Draft after his breakout season. Redshirt freshman Braylon Staley won SEC Freshman of the Year and was the Vols’ best wideout all season long. Former five-star wideout sophomore Mike Matthews reeled in 50 receptions for 770 yards and four touchdowns for good measure as well. Even redshirt sophomore tight end Ethan Davis had a breakout finish to the season for Tennessee in the passing game.
I don’t think Heupel and his offensive staff have gotten enough credit for using last offseason to evolve. Like Slim Charles told Bodie on The Wire, “The thing about the old days, they the old days.” For the first time since 2022, the Vols were top-10 in scoring in FBS again. Interestingly enough, the Vols were the only P4 team this season to have a top-10 scoring offense and then not win double-digit games. The same was actually true in 2021 as well, where the Vols were once again the only top-10 offense in FBS that did not end the season with double-digit victories. On a related note, the Vols were 92nd in scoring defense this past season and 90th in 2021.
Heupel does not need Knowles to guide Tennessee to the No. 1 defense in all of FBS. He needs him to get the Vols’ defense closer to where the Vols’ offense has been in three out of the last five seasons. Knowles should give Tennessee fans hope that the extreme disparities between the offense and the defense year-to-year could be a thing of the past with Knowles and Heupel leading the charge in 2026 and beyond.
I don’t know how Knowles will fare in Knoxville, but I do know that Heupel took a big swing last offseason, too, with his offensive adjustments, and it resulted in a top-10 scoring offense once again for Tennessee. Could this year’s big swing result in a similar story? It’s certainly plausible, and that should excite Vol fans everywhere.