(utsports.com) – Derek Jones, a 27-year coaching veteran and the former cornerbacks coach at Virginia Tech, has been named Tennessee's new cornerbacks coach, head coach Josh Heupel announced Monday.
Jones owns 18 seasons of coaching cornerbacks at the Power Four level, including from 2022-25 with the Hokies where he also served as defensive recruiting coordinator. Jones mentored Dorian Strong, who earned All-ACC third team honors and All-America status in 2023. In 2024, Strong tallied two interceptions and six pass breakups, earning invites to the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine. He was selected in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills.
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I'll repeat my call for us to schedule Tennessee
So frustrating that we haven't been regularly playing Tennessee and South Carolina home and homes.
Even less chances of it happening with every conference going to 9 games (except our very GoACC some teams play 9, some teams play 8).
If we had any real, centralized leadership in this sport, we would have 8+2 uniform scheduling across the board for the power conferences. 8 conference games + 2 required OOC games against P4 teams, and 2 to do whatever you like with.
Not to sidetrack this thread, but based on your comment:
It seemed like a good place to put this.
What's supposed to be a rolling 8-game schedule for each ACC team, doesn't seem to be applied equally. Clemson has 8 games for the next three seasons, not playing 9 games until 2029.
I was getting ready to ask if the ACC has released any schedules beyond 2026, but then I found this article at fbschedules.
It is interesting to note that all but Syracuse have SEC in-state rivals. And Clemson has a 12 year series scheduled with Notre Dame from 2027-2038, on top of their annual matchup with USCe. Although, in typical #goACC fashion, they only have 3 non-con games scheduled in 2027, but five scheduled in 2029, when they start a home-and-home with Georgia.
Okay, digging further, I give up on trying to justify any decisions here. Syracuse doesn't have any non-con games listed in 2030, while VT has 4.
But also, based on recent ACC history, it's not worth putting too much effort in here, because any conference scheduling decisions won't hold for more than a couple of years. In the last four years, we've seen four versions of the 2026 schedule:
-original divisional format
-divisionless with 3 permanent rivals
-17-team league
-9 conference games
Hokies have to drop a scheduled opponent or already have in each of those seasons.
That's sort of my point. I'm not advocating for us keeping all four of those games in 2030 (especially with both Liberty and ODU on that schedule), but logically it would have made sense to give us the 8 game conference schedule that season to avoid having to break or buy out a contract instead of arbitrarily picking a team with zero publicly scheduled non-conference games.
That being said, let's drop the @Liberty game in 2030 as that should be the year that we have five away ACC games. But then again, the ACC schedule will likely change five times before then.
We better drop at Liberty
Amen to that. Will be rather disappointing if that game is kept.
I'll sing the same refrain I did when Jalen Stroman transferred to Notre Dame: Good for Coach Cheetah. No idea how they pulled it off but hats off on the salesmanship.
Coached at Duke with Knowles
I liked Cheetah. Unsure if he was a bad coach or if it was a bad situation. Regardless, happy he landed on his feet.
I thought Cheetah was a decent recruiter in a bad situation, but he couldn't develop the "project" players with limited talent. The highly talented kids that we did get, didn't regress but also didn't get a whole lot better year over year.
How much that is due to poor secondary coaching vs the secondary having to cover for out of position linebacker or something?
No reason why it couldn't be both
I want to say when he was developing guys at Duke, their linebacker and safety play was better, which means he probably got to have them focus on being CB's, not covering other areas of the field.
Those Duke defenses sucked though, same with the Texas Tech ones. I was surprised when we brought him in.
(Pry's defensive staffs in general besides JC sucked tbh)
and this is why I'm confident that I will be able to let my UT family hear it every Saturday as their secondary gets torched.