Josh Heupel made the first coaching change of his Tennessee football tenure on Monday, firing Tim Banks after he spent the previous five years leading the Volunteer defense.
Tennessee gave Banks a contract extension after last seasons runs to the College Football Playoffs largely on the backs on the defense. But after a poor 2025 season defensively, Heupel decided to make a move and look elsewhere for the leader of the Vols’ defense.
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Ryan Walters
Walters is most known for his two-year unsuccessful stretch as head coach at Purdue, but he has a strong defensive coaching pedigree.
He has served stints as defensive coordinator at Missouri, Illinois and most recently Washington this past season where the Huskies’ defense ranked 22nd nationally in points per game. Maybe most importantly, there’s crossover between Heupel and Walters.
Walters was on Barry Odom’s staff at Missouri during Heupel’s time there as offensive coordinator. Walters also has a history coaching safeties which would make the transition more seamless since Banks coached safeties at Tennessee.
Jim Knowles
The defensive coordinator with the most pedigree nationally is currently out of work. Knowles spent the 2025 season as Penn State’s defensive coordinator and new head coach Matt Campbell is bringing Jon Heacock with him from Iowa State.
Penn State poached Knowles away from Ohio State with a three-year contract worth $3.1 million annually. That to say, Knowles will not be hurting for money and Tennessee will have to make a major financial commitment to land him.
But Knowles is thought of as one of the nation’s best defensive coordinators. Prior to his year at Penn State, Knowles spent three years at Ohio State and four years at Oklahoma State.
Colin Hitschler
Hitschler was James Madison’s defensive coordinator this season where the Dukes enter the College Football Playoff with the nation’s second best scoring defense. He’s also in a unique spot with JMU head coach Bob Chesney leaving for UCLA. Chesney has not announced any of his staff at UCLA yet.
The 39-year old lacks an abundance of defensive coordinator experience but has spent time in the SEC as the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Alabama in 2024.
Hitschler has coached safeties throughout his career which, again, is a plus as Tennessee looks to replace Banks.
Corey Batoon
Batoon has spent the last two years as Missouri’s defensive coordinator. Prior to that, Batoon was the defensive coordinator at South Alabama for three years. He also has defensive coordinator experience at Hawaii and Florida Atlantic.
The 57-year old has experience in the SEC not just at Missouri but for five years at Ole Miss. It might be difficult for Tennessee to poach Batoon from Missouri but his contract pays him $1 million a year. The Vols could likely boost that salary a good bit. They were paying Banks over $2 million a year.
Batoon was a safeties coach at Ole Miss, Florida Atlantic, Liberty and South Alabama so could easily fill that role on the Vols’ staff.
Clayton White
Another coach that is a sitting SEC defensive coordinator, White has been Shane Beamer’s defensive coordinator at South Carolina over the last five years.
Given White has spent five years at South Carolina, he may be unlikely to leave. But he has a history of extended stays at different stops— at least in terms of the coaching profession. White spent four years as defensive coordinator at Western Kentucky and four years as special teams coach at NC State.
White’s position coach experience is at inside linebacker and not safety which is a negative. He also made $1.9 million last season at South Carolina.
Travaris Robinson
Robinson is another coach with an abundance of SEC experience. The 44-year old played his college football at Auburn and has spent the bulk of his coaching career in the SEC with stops at Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.
The Miami native is currently the co-defensive coordinator at Georgia, a position he’s held the last two seasons. But Glen Schumann and Kirby Smart are the ones with the most say defensively for the Bulldogs. Robinson could get his first true defensive coordinator experience at Tennessee.
Robinson also has a history as a strong recruited a defensive backs coach which is a plus for any Tennessee defensive coordinator candidate.
Justin Wilcox
Sometimes you’ve got to go back to actually move forward. Wilcox was Derek Dooley’s defensive coordinator for his first two seasons before jumping off a sinking ship and leaving for the defensive coordinator position at Washington.
Wilcox has been Cal’s head coach the last nine years before the Golden Bears fired him earlier this month after a 7-5 season. The 49-year old is back on the market and would be a heck of a hire if Heupel could make it happen.
Whether Wilcox would want to coach next season is a question on its own. It’s a whole other question if he’d want to leave for the SEC. He’s an Oregon native who played his college football for the Ducks. His only stint in the southeast was at Tennessee. The rest of Wilcox coordinator experience came at Boise State, USC and Wisconsin.
Alex Grinch
Grinch is one of the most well known defensive coordinators in the sport. It was a major splash hire back in 2019 when Lincoln Riley poached the Ohio State co-defensive coordinator to run his defense at Oklahoma. Two years later, Riley took Grinch with him to USC.
But Grinch’s star has dimmed in recent years. USC’s defense was terrible leading to his termination after the 2023 season. Grinch went to Wisconsin in a co-defensive coordinator role for a year before landing on Scott Frost’s staff at UCF this season.
Grinch would be a bit of an underwhelming hire, but he has experience as a defensive coordinator in up-tempo offenses and is also a safety coach.
