Tennessee Football made a splash hire last Thursday when it officially announced the addition of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles to fill the same position with the Volunteers. The news came on the back of Tennessee parting ways with Tim Banks, who had served as the Vols’ defensive coordinator and safeties coach for the past five seasons.
When announcing Banks’ firing, Tennessee also went ahead and tagged linebackers coach William Inge as the interim defensive coordinator for the upcoming Music City Bowl. Even though Knowles was quickly announced as the Vols’ next defensive coordinator, the team won’t be learning any new schemes or systems between now and the Illinois game. Instead, it’ll be Inge picking things up before Knowles can officially sink his teeth into things after the bowl season.
“Right now, we’re just listening to what Coach Inge says, building on a new playbook while also using some of the things we did in the past,” Tennessee linebacker Jeremiah Telander said on Tuesday. “Right now, I’m just fully focused on that. When Coach Knowles wants to implement his defense, then that will be my focus.”
In the meantime, Knowles is with the Tennessee program and in an evaluation period. He’s getting to know the schedule, the routines, the players, and the staff during his first week on the job.
“Got here on Monday and you’re starting the onboarding process just with campus and that type of thing,” Josh Heupel said about Knowles’ first week on Thursday. “Then him having that opportunity to get introduced in front of the team, be able to watch practice and what a typical week looks like from us on the practice standpoint. The ability to watch and get to know our current roster here and get to know our staff, all of it and so you continue to grow, or he continues to grow and his understanding of who we have here and what it is and ultimately a big part of it is the projection of the portal and things that we need to give our defense an opportunity to be elite.”
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Heupel mentioned that while Knowles hasn’t been having individual meetings with players yet, he has been able to be around the position groups at times during the week.
“He hasn’t had individual meetings (with players) at this point,” Heupel said. “He has been able to sit in on some position meetings and our ‘26 recruits have the opportunity to communicate with those guys and that process continues on the recruiting side with ‘27s and then ultimately portal guys here quickly too coming up.”
Multiple reports have noted that Tennessee zeroed in on Knowles early in the process of their defensive coordinator search. Knowles, a former national champion with Ohio State in 2024, was a big fish in the pond with his history in the sport, but he was someone that Tennessee wanted to get. It was clear on Thursday that Heupel respects the work that he’s done.
“You look at his track record of success, building defenses that play at a championship level, being able to do it multiple spots, do it in a way that fits the personnel that’s there and that you can recruit to,” Heupel said about Knowles. “Subtly being different at the different places that he’s been. And the ability to tie all three levels of it together and play really good defense.”
Tennessee won’t be learning and installing Knowles’ defense until after the bowl game, but there’s clear excitement in the room to get that going when the time comes.
“I was telling Edwin (Spillman) earlier, I want to get that install as soon as we possibly can so we can start making flashcards and start quizzing each other,” Telander said on Tuesday. “It’s going to be an exciting challenge and I’m looking forward to it.”
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