Tennessee's defense was a whole lot better this past fall, and it appears Tim Banks isn't going anywhere.

Finalizing a contract extension with Tennessee, Tim Banks set to return to Knoxville.

All that and more.

Plus one of his star defenders sideline, this is your Thursday, Lockdown Balls.

You are Locked on Balls, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Volunteers, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

Thank you, Thursday morning, everybody.

Welcome into today's edition of Lockdown Falls, presented by our friends over at Fandall's Sportsbook,

where new customers can bet $5 and get $300 and bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's at fandle.com to go ahead and get started today. Got a lot to get into today. Tim Banks finalizing a contract extension, it appears with Tennessee. To me, that's not news. Okay? You know, if you're, if you listen to this podcast and if you are a member of AlQuest.com, it's been reported that he's had a contract extension ready to sign on his desk for quite some time. Will anything change in that regard? We'll figure out the language once everything's officially, you know, set and done probably in the coming days or maybe a week or so. But it does appear that

10 Banks is coming back. So we'll kind of get into that and why that's a good thing for Tennessee.

I understand there's some frustrated fans. I understand there was two bad losses this year,

three losses, but the Arkansas game wasn't on the defense, right? And we'll get into that. But

Tim Banks is coming back and that is a good thing for Tennessee, in my opinion.

One of the star defenders might not be ready to go for the start of the season, projected to, but we know how injuries like this,

especially with an ACL tear, and that's what All-American quarterback, Drummond McCoy, has done here in the offseason, first reported by Volkwest,

Austin Price, getting that injury while getting some offseason training back in Texas. We'll dive into that and what that means for Tennessee. And then here's a take that I heard earlier this week about Nico I amaliava. Is he a bus or is he not a bus? I think it's a tough date to call him a bust right now. We'll get to that segment number three. We'll talk some hoops tomorrow. I know Tennessee and Georgia was last night. I was going to talk about that here today, but just a lot on the calendar here. And we're going to talk to football. So let's start with Tim Banks. Clearly, Tim Banks is either loved by some fans or not appreciated by some fans. And I'm not going to tell anybody how to fan. That's not my place. I think for the first two years, specifically, three years, I guess, it's easy to kind of make him a scapegoat. It's easy to kind of, you know, say that it's all his fault. The defense wasn't producing. You know, we're not going to go all the way back down memory lane here, but it's, you know, memory, bad memories, right?

I mean, think about where Tennessee's defense was in 2021. Think about everybody that left. Think about how you were playing three linebackers. Think about the talent that was on the roster, the amount of talent compared to the amount of talent that's now on the roster. You've got to get these guys some credit. Martinez, Banks,

Enged this year,

John Marie before him,

Roddy Garner. roster. You've got to get these guys some credit. Martinez, Banks, Inge this year,

John Marie before him, Roddy Garner, Chop, of course, Mike Echler, all these guys. I mean,

they've developed and they've produced a really solid defense. You know, how solid was that

defense this last year in 2024? Well, it gave up 209 points and allowed 3,812 total

...