New Tennessee safeties coach and co-defensive coordinator Anthony Poindexter is looking for toughness out of his defensive group. In other words, he won’t accept any soft behavior in the secondary or from his safeties group as a whole.
While speaking with Voice of the Vols Mike Keith on Thursday, Poindexter broke down his philosophy behind coaching the safety position. Poindexter knows a thing or two about the spot, considering that he was a three-time First Team All-ACC safety and the ACC Defensive Player of the Year during his playing days at Virginia.
“When you’re looking for a safety, you’re looking for a guy with instincts and a guy that kind of got a natural feel for playing this position,” Poindexter said on the Mike Keith Show on YouTube. “He’s gotta be able to see things that a lot of times you really can’t coach. They can see it. You put them in the system and they got a feel for just how to play the game.”
Poindexter also says that elite safeties are built on the practice field, and he’s looking for guys who are chomping at the bit each day of the week.
“Everybody want to play in the game, but everybody don’t want to practice and practice the right way,” Poindexter said. “So when you’re looking at it, to develop these guys, you just gotta have guys that got that innate drive and energy to play football. And if they tough, because I told them, ‘I can’t deal with softness.’ I mean, that’s just part of who I am. But if they’re tough, they’re competitive and they’ve got a feel for the game, they’ll be a good safety.”
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Poindexter’s words echo the sentiment of another new Tennessee coach this offseason. The Vols hired Derek Owings as their new head strength coach, who is heading to Knoxville after helping Indiana win the national championship this season. Owings has been under Curt Cignetti for the past six years and helped quickly build the Hoosiers into one of the toughest programs in the nation.
“You cannot be soft when you’re going to war,” Owings said to the UT team in a behind-the-scenes social media video. “We’ve got a long way to go, right? This is day one. We’ll get there. We’ll get there. We’ve got to stack ’em up, we’ve got to collect ourselves right now and go inside and attack this lift.”
Tennessee overhauled its safety position through the transfer portal this season. The Vols do return starting safety Edrees Farooq, who graded out as UT’s highest-rated safety on PFF last year, but Tennessee also brought in several players from the portal to compete. Tennessee added former Michigan safety TJ Metcalf, Kansas State safety Qua Moss, Penn State safety Dejuan Lane, and App State safety DJ Burks.
With the new defensive coaching staff being installed this offseason, though, each player will have to earn their spot in the starting lineup or in the rotation. A lack of softness will be one of the requirements.
Tennessee hired Penn State’s Jim Knowles to fill its vacant defensive coordinator position in December. Knowles has a championship pedigree as the DC for Ohio State during the Buckeyes’ championship run in 2024. Knowles brought Poindexter with him from Penn State, who served in the same DC and secondary roles with the Nittany Lions. Poindexter not only has familiarity with Knowles’ scheme and system, but he’s also got a prior relationship with safety transfer Dejuan Lane.
For Poindexter, there wasn’t a second thought about leaving Penn State to join Knowles in Knoxville.
“Nah, no hesitation at all,” Poindexter said about following Knowles to Tennessee.
“I can’t deal with softness.” 😤
full Poindexter video » https://t.co/HOjxTXO9sy pic.twitter.com/DKqsnCkqk0
— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) February 6, 2026
