Tim Banks details Tennessee's secondary plans heading into fall camp

Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks spoke about the Volunteers secondary ahead of fall camp and their plans to improve this season. Banks fielded questions for a lengthy press appearance, and detailed how Tennessee works to finalize their starting players in the secondary and how it helps build their defense as a unit.

Tim Banks on using camp to identify starting players

“It’s a lot of moving parts,” admitted Banks when asked if he knew his starting secondary already. “We had guys obviously that played some snaps, starters from last year — Warren Burrell comes to mind. McCullough, Tank played a ton of reps for us. [Trevon] Flowers has played a ton of reps for us. But the reality of it is, and I know this may sound like coach speak, but just like we did in the spring we moved guys to a lot of different positions. Try to figure out what our best combination of guys that we can put out there on the field, so to speak.

“We’re gonna move those guys all around, try to figure out who is the star, who is the safeties and obviously the corners. I think it’s a good problem to have, but we want to coach defensive backs — not necessarily safeties, stars, corners — we just wanna put the best combination of guys out there we can.

“It’s always an urgency. We talked about that a lot just in terms of what our mantra is — love, trust and urgency. So I don’t think you can figure anything out, out of one practice. Obviously you’ve gotta continue to rotate guys in, continue to put guys in different spots [and] see how they adjust to it. We’d like this thing to be figured out as quickly as possible so you can continue to game plan.”

Banks was later asked if he agreed with the defensive philosophy of Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who believes that what a team’s cornerbacks can do determines what the defense itself can do. Banks agreed with the concept, highlighting how Tennessee uses a similar philosophy when planning schemes around man-coverage and stopping the run.

“If you’re a scheme that asks your corners to play a lot of man-to-man so you can be able to load the box, I think traditionally, yeah. That’s a solid statement,” agreed Banks. “We gotta figure out who our best corners are. We’d like to be able to play with at least three at the bare minimum. You’d like to be able to play four in a perfect situation. Once we figure out that position, we’ll continue to see who the best guys are, whether a star or safety. Yeah, I think that’s a strong statement and I would definitely echo that.”