Tennessee’s up-and-down 2025 football season has centered around the decline in its defense.
Last season, the Volunteers’ defense was possibly the program’s best since the 1998 national championship team.
That’s far from the truth this season as the No. 23 Volunteers (6-3) rank second-to-last in the Southeastern Conference in total defense and scoring defense heading into Saturday’s nonconference home game against New Mexico State (3-6) in Knoxville, Tenn.
“It’s obviously been a tale of some highs and some lows, some things we’ve done really well and obviously, some things we want to do better,” Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks said. “But we’ve got three games left, and as I tell guys all the time, it’s not a sprint — it’s a marathon.”
Last season, the Volunteers finished sixth nationally in total defense (293.2 yards allowed per game) and seventh in scoring defense (16.1 points allowed per game).
After losing six players to the NFL, this year’s defense is giving up 31.1 points per game (114th nationally) and 395.9 yards per game (99th nationally) despite having the same coordinator in Banks, a Broyles Award finalist last year.
It hasn’t helped that the Volunteers have had key injuries to starting cornerbacks Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson III, making the secondary much less experienced.
“Yeah, I don’t know that it’s one thing,” Banks said when asked about the defense’s struggles. “I think when you’re dealing with some inexperience, every week’s a new week. Every opportunity is an opportunity for those guys to learn. Communication, I think those guys have worked really hard about it, particularly talking about the safety spot and even your nickel. Those guys being able to communicate at a high level is extremely important.”
Tennessee’s high-powered, veer-and-shoot offense has been able to cover up some of the defense’s warts this season. The Volunteers lead the nation with 504.1 yards per game and lead the SEC in scoring with 43.6 points per game.
The Volunteers are led by senior quarterback Joey Aguilar, who has completed 65.7% of his passes (195 of 297) for 21 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
He’s thrown six touchdowns in his last two games, but also had two interceptions last time out in the 33-27 loss to Oklahoma that may have eliminated the Volunteers from College Football Playoff contention.
Over half of Aguilar’s SEC-leading 2,737 yards and nearly two-thirds of his touchdowns have gone to Chris Brazzell II and Braylon Staley.
Brazzell has 49 catches for 808 yards and eight touchdowns while Staley has caught 52 passes for 703 yards and five touchdowns.
New Mexico State is still trying to cling to a bowl bid in Tony Sanchez’s second season as head coach.
The Aggies matched last year’s three-win total five games into the season, but have lost their last four games since. Of those three of the four losses were by one score, including an overtime loss to Missouri State Oct. 22.
Last week, the Aggies lost 24-21 to Kennesaw State, coming up just short in a comeback attempt with 14 fourth-quarter points.
“Those (close losses) are frustrating things, but as a coach, you go, âOK, no quit them, a ton of toughness in them,” Sanchez said. “We have shown we can play good offense, we have shown we can play good defense and we have shown we can be great on special teams. Now we have to put it all together.”
