A year after he was a Broyles Award finalist as one of the best assistant coaches in college football for his role in fielding a defense that led Tennessee to the College Football Playoff, Tim Banks is out as the defensive coordinator for the Vols. Multiple sources told GoVols247 on Monday that Tennessee is expected to move on from Banks after significant regression this season contributed to an 8-4 regular season that saw the Vols lose three games at Neyland Stadium and drop all four games against ranked opponents. Banks is the only defensive coordinator Josh Heupel has had at Tennessee after hiring him from Penn State in 2021 and oversaw impressive improvement over the previous three seasons before the defense took a step back in 2025.
Tennessee in 2024 ranked seventh nationally in scoring defense – the 16.1 points per game allowed by the Vols were their lowest in a season since the 1998 national championship team (14.5) – and was sixth in the FBS in total defense (293.2 yards per game allowed) and fifth nationally in yards per play allowed (4.56) on its way to a first-ever Playoff bid after a 10-win regular season.
But the loss of two top-100 NFL Draft prospects and an unfortunate run of injuries impacting the cornerback, linebacker and defensive tackle positions led to a defensive downturn for Tennessee this season. The Vols tumbled to 92nd nationally in scoring defense, allowing their most points (28.8) since their first season under Heupel and Banks in 2021 (29.1) when the roster was in rough shape after a three-win pandemic-impacted 2020 season and subsequent coaching transition amid remarkable roster churn. Tennessee allowed 33.6 points per game in its eight SEC contests, which was third-worst in the league in conference games.
Tennessee’s stellar season on defense led to Banks signing a lucrative contract extension in the offseason. The new three-year deal bumped Banks’s salary from $1.5 million to $2.15 million and made him one of the highest-paid defensive coordinators in the SEC and nationally. It was a timely reward to keep him amid interest from at least a couple of other programs, but now it means the Vols owe him a significant buyout for parting ways with him.
Per his contract, Tennessee owes Banks the remaining salary on his deal, which with two full contract years and nearly two months would be in the $4.5 million range. There is offset language for the separation payment due Banks over the remaining two years of the deal that runs through January 2028 that could lower the buyout. He is contractually obligated to “use his reasonable best efforts” to mitigate Tennessee’s buyout by “making reasonable and diligent efforts as soon as practicable following termination to obtain another comparable employment.”
This will be just the second change of Heupel’s tenure at Tennessee and the first since offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Alex Golesh left after the breakthrough 2022 to become the head coach at South Florida.
A winding defensive coordinator search after the Vols hired Heupel ended with Banks, who had spent the previous five seasons (2016-20) at Penn State with James Franklin as the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach for the Nittany Lions.
Tennessee’s defense struggled during that debut 2021 season, but Banks and his veteran staff with long-time SEC assistant coaches Rodney Garner and Willie Martinez steadily improved the talent and performance levels on defense to the point where that unit was the strength of the 2023 and 2024 teams, bucking the perception of Tennessee as an offense-first and offense-only program under the offensive-minded Heupel.
The Vols jumped from 12th in the SEC in scoring defense in 2021 to sixth (22.8 points per game allowed) in 2022, when the Vols held 10 of 13 opponents under 30 points, which was more than enough opposite the No. 1 offense in college football for Tennessee to win 11 games and finish with a No. 6 final ranking.
Tennessee was third in the SEC in scoring defense (20.3 points per game) during a 9-4 season in 2023, which set the stage for last season’s stellar unit. The 2024 Vols ranked second in the SEC in run defense and third-down defense and racked up 21 turnovers. Only three opponents surpassed 20 points against the Vols.
Going into the regular-season finale against Vanderbilt, Tennessee’s 474 tackles for loss under Banks leads the SEC since the start of the 2021 season. The Vols finished in the top 15 nationally and the top two in the SEC in TFLs in each of the previous four seasons and concluded the 2025 regular season ranked 14th nationally and fourth in the SEC. Fourth of the 12 highest single-season TFL totals for the Vols have come under Banks – 102 in 2021 (fifth), 101 in 2023 (seventh), 100 in 2024 (eighth) and 94 in 2022 (12th) – and have 15 games with double-digit TFLs under Banks.
Banks’s defenses also have been adept at pressuring opposing quarterbacks. Tennessee has recorded at least three sacks in a game 33 times under Banks and are 29-4 in those games (with two of the losses coming this season). The Vols had 34 sacks in 2021 (eighth in the SEC), 31 in 2022 (sixth), 41 in 2023 (second), 29 in 2024 (eighth) and 36 in 2025 (fourth).
Tennessee’s defensive success under Banks started with strong run defense. The Vols allowed 200+ rushing yards five times in 2021, then finished second, fourth and second in the SEC in run defense over the next three seasons with annually decreasing per-game averages. The blueprint for Banks & Co. was to stop the run and create negative plays to get opponents off schedule, then mix up their coverages and pressures to generate stops on third downs.
The Vols also thrived on takeaways, generating at least 20 turnovers in three of Banks’s five seasons. Tennessee ranked second in the SEC in takeaways in 2022 (22) and tied for third in 2023 (18) and forced 21 turnovers in 2024, and even this season’s subpar defense generated 20 takeaways. Tennessee scored six defensive touchdowns in 2025, the program’s highest single-season total since 1996 and second-best total ever.
Tennessee’s 2024 defense finished in the top 25 nationally in nine different categories – fourth-down defense (third), yards per play allowed (fifth), third-down defense (sixth), total defense (sixth), scoring defense (seventh), tackles for loss (eighth), red-zone defense (11th), first downs allowed (16th) and pass efficiency defense (22nd) – while allowing the fewest total points in a season (209) since 1999 (194).
But the loss of top pass-rushers James Pearce Jr. and Omarr Norman-Lott, first- and second-round NFL Draft picks, respectively, and the offseason injury to 2024 All-SEC cornerback Jermod McCoy shorn Banks and the Vols of three of their top performers from last season. Tennessee then lost starting cornerback Rickey Gibson III in the season opener, and top linebacker Arion Carter dealt with turf toe in both feet for two months of the season. A defensive tackle position that lost stalwarts in Omari Thomas and Elijah Simmons didn’t have Jaxson Moi for essentially four full games or Daevin Hobbs for five games.
The result was a stark drop-off.
Tennessee dropped to 12th in the SEC in run defense and allowed 200+ rushing yards three times – the Vols had just one such game the three previous seasons – with two other conference opponents surpassing 190 yards on the ground. The Vols also went from fifth in the SEC in pass defense in 2024 (189.3 yards per game allowed) to 15th in 2025 (248.8) thanks to a big uptick in explosive plays allowed. The Vols dropped to 13th in the SEC in third-down defense – allowing opponents to convert at a 40.5% clip, up from 30.3% in 2024 and the second-worst of Banks’s tenure – and allowed 12 of 22 fourth-down conversions, too.
Tennessee allowed 31+ points in seven of its 12 games this season, the nadir coming in the regular-season finale when the Vols allowed 582 yards on 8.95 yards per play and 45 points against Vanderbilt. The defense had shown signs of late-season improvement with Oklahoma needing three long field goals and three turnovers (one of them a defensive touchdown) to score 33 points and Florida and New Mexico State combining for 20 points and just two touchdowns. But Tennessee’s defense collapsed against Vanderbilt, which exposed the defense’s season-long shortcomings and ultimately led Heupel to initiate the most significant change of his Tennessee tenure.
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