Off The Hook Sports continues its 2022 Tennessee football preseason preview on the top 25 impact players for the Vols this upcoming season.

Coming in at No. 3 is redshirt senior linebacker Jeremy Banks

Past Performance

Two of the top 5 most important players for Tennessee, you could argue, hail from Cordova High School near Memphis – Jerome Carvin and Jeremy Banks.

Banks is Tennessee’s best returning defensive player this upcoming season. He’s fresh off a simply fantastic year at Will linebacker for the Vols, notching a team-high 128 tackles. That’s the most tackles by a Vol in a single season since AJ Johnson in 2015.

It was also good enough for second in the SEC and seventh in the nation in total tackles. On top of this, Banks collected 11.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks per game, both tied for team highs with Byron Young.

Pretty good for a guy who is on his second chance with Tennessee at a position he did not start college at. Banks was a top prospect from Cordova and came to Knoxville as a running back.

He was suspended from the team in 2019 following an off the field incident before being reinstated in 2020. Upon return, Banks worked and earned a starter role in 2021 and thrived, as noted above.

Opportunities

And that’s what makes Banks so exciting heading into 2022. He has one year of action as a true starter and was one of Tennessee’s top defenders. Still, there is plenty to improve upon.

Banks is a bull in a China closet, to put it bluntly. It seems he was good for one personal foul penalty per game in 2021, a reality that really hurt Tennessee at times during the season. As a redshirt senior moving to be the true leader of the team, that can’t keep happening.

In a way its who Banks is. He worked hard to get to this point, one many would not have seen him in when he was kicked off the team in 2019.

As far as his play from whistle to whistle, Banks has a real opportunity to pass AJ Johnson’s mark of 138 set in 2015. If he can stay healthy, 150 should be a reasonable mark for Banks to aim for.

Hear it from…

It’s hard to think about Banks’ potential without addressing the personal foul problem.

It wasn’t just last year either. Banks has been doing this since he arrived on Rocky Top in 2018, even as a running back. Multiple coaching staffs have addressed the issue when asked how they see him improving moving forward.

“I think we all would agree it’s probably just playing under control,” linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary said. “He is such an aggressive player, which is what you want, but it has to be controlled aggression. I think he’s been better this spring. He’s still going to play 100 miles an hour. He plays the game the right way, with the right mentality. He’s got to do it within the framework of what our expectations are on defense and obviously what coach Heupel’s expectations are as the head coach.”

Banks serves as a microcosm for the team as a whole too, which makes sense as one of the leaders of the defense. Tennessee was one of the most penalized teams in the SEC last season with just over seven flags thrown per game. Sometimes it’s the little things that turn a potentially great team into just a good team.