Tennessee

Tennessee Titans finalize coaching staff: A look at the defense

Published

4 months ago

February 15, 2026

Tennessee Titans finalize coaching staff: A look at the defense

The Tennessee Titans have announced their full coaching staff for the 2026 NFL season.

The Titans hired Robert Saleh to be their next head coach on Jan. 22. Tennessee has made additional hirings in the weeks since Saleh’s deal.

The Titans have retained three coaches on their defensive staff. Tennessee welcomed five new defensive coaches this offseason.

Let’s take a look at the Titans’ defensive coaching staff in full.

Ben Bloom – Senior defensive assistant

Ben Bloom returns to the Titans for his third season, now as senior defensive assistant. Bloom served as outside linebackers coach for the Titans from 2024-25.

Dave Borgonzi – Linebackers coach

Dave Borgonzi replaces Frank Bush as linebackers coach. Borgonzi is the younger brother of Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi. He most recently served as linebackers coach for the Dallas Cowboys in 2025.

Dalton Hilliard – Defensive backs/nickels

Dalton Hilliard was the pass game coordinator as well as defensive backs coach for Colorado State in 2025. The Titans are the first NFL team that Hilliard has coached for in his career.

Marquand Manuel – Defensive backs/safeties

Manuel joins the Titans after serving as secondary coach/pass game coordinator with the New York Giants in 2025. He’s been a defensive coach in the league since 2013. Manuel began his NFL coaching career as a special teams assistant on the Seattle Seahawks in 2012.

Tony Oden – Pass game coordinator/cornerbacks

The 2026 NFL season will be Tony Oden’s second as the Titans’ defensive passing game coordinator as well as cornerbacks coach. Oden was the New York Jets’ senior defensive assistant as well as cornerbacks coach from 2022-24. New York’s secondary produced a two-time first-team All-Pro honoree in Sauce Gardner in 2022 as well as 2023.

Ahmed Saleh – Defensive assistant

Ahmed Saleh, the cousin of coach Robert Saleh, serves as the new defensive assistant for the Titans. His last role was as linebackers coach as well as special teams coordinator for Wayne State University.

Travis Smith – Senior defensive assistant/pass rush specialist

Travis Smith now serves as defensive assistant/pass rush specialist after serving as defensive run game coordinator in 2026. Smith enters his second season with Tennessee.

Aaron Whitecotton – Defensive line

Whitecotton serves as the Titans’ defensive line coach. He’s coached in the NFL since 2013. Whitecotton most recently served as defensive line coach for the Dallas Cowboys in 2025.

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Tennessee

Tennessee baseball adds pitcher Ricky Ojeda, UC Irvine transfer

Published

3 hours ago

June 20, 2026

Press Room

Tennessee baseball adds pitcher Ricky Ojeda, UC Irvine transfer

Tennessee baseball received a commitment from UC Irvine pitcher Ricky Ojeda on June 19.

Ojeda, who is eligible for the MLB draft in July, announced his decision on social media. He visited Tennessee on June 15-16.

The lefthanded Ojeda had a strong 2026 season primarily as a reliever, posting a 3.77 ERA with 62 strikeouts and 20 walks in 62 innings. In 2025, he became the first reliever to be named Big West Pitcher of the Year after going 13-1 with a 3.55 ERA and 83 strikeouts in 66 innings, which also earned him a third-team all-American nod from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Perfect Game.

Whether Ojeda makes it to Tennessee remains an open question. Perfect Game ranked him as the No. 179 prospect for the draft. That would place him in the sixth round.

Should Ojeda join the staff, however, he would instantly become one of the team’s top options out of a bullpen that struggled immensely in 2026. The pitching staff is also under new leadership under pitching coach Austin Knight, who was hired from ECU.

Ojeda is the fourth player to announce they will transfer to Tennessee this offseason, joining two-way Mercer transfer Braydon Kersey, Northwestern State pitcher Brody Trosclair and Air Force infielder Wyatt Hanoian.

Who’s leaving Tennessee baseball

UTL Jay Abernathy (Oklahoma)
RHP Nic Abraham
INF Ariel Antigua (Arizona)
INF Finley Bates
RHP Ari Bethea
OF Hutson Chance
RHP Sawyer Deering (San Diego State)
OF Nate Eisfelder
1B Evan Hankins (Virginia Tech)
UTL Hunter High
RHP Brayden Krenzel (Arkansas)
INF Manny Marin
INF Ethan Moore (Missouri)
UTL Chris Newstrom
LHP Taylor Tracey
C Cash Williams (West Virginia)

Who’s joining Tennessee baseball

RHP/DH Braydon Kersey
LHP Brody Trosclair
INF Wyatt Hanoian
LHP Ricky Ojeda

Emmett Siegel covers Tennessee baseball for Knox News. Email: emmett.siegel@knoxnews.com; X: @EmmettSiegel_

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Tennessee

Shooting Hunger event aims to prevent childhood hunger in West Tennessee

Published

14 hours ago

June 19, 2026

Press Room

Shooting Hunger event aims to prevent childhood hunger in West Tennessee

JACKSON, Tenn. (WBBJ) – An exciting day of sporting clays in West Tennessee is doubling as a major fight against hunger.

Today’s “Shooting Hunger” event took place at the Carroll County Shooting Sports Park in Huntingdon. It’s a partnership between Tennessee Farm Bureau, Tennessee Farmers Co-Op, Farm Credit Mid-America and Rural First.

Shooting Hunger at Carroll County Shooting Sports Park(Gray News)

Since 2015, Shooting Hunger has helped provide more than three million meals to Tennesseans with money going to food banks, backpack programs, and local hunger relief. A $500 scholarship will also go to the top youth shooter in each flight.

“We’re joining together to raise money for school backpacks to feed hungry kids. We do these, we actually do three of these across the state of Tennessee so at the end of the day we take, we take all the money we put it into a pile and when we divide equally amongst all 95 counties across the state of Tennessee,“ said Bryan Wright, executive vice president for the Tennessee Farm Bureau.

Organizers say events like this matter because one in six children in Tennessee struggle with hunger.

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Inside Tennessee 4×100 relay’s NCAA title, outlasting four botched exchanges

Published

24 hours ago

June 19, 2026

Press Room

Inside Tennessee 4×100 relay’s NCAA title, outlasting four botched exchanges

Tennessee director of track and field Duane Ross gauged the hunger of the men’s 4×100-meter relay team to pull off the upset.

“They said, ‘Coach, we’re going to win,’ ” Ross said. “When they bring you that much confidence, you can grab your popcorn and enjoy the meet.”

No popcorn was consumed, but the appetite was there from the start.

Traunard Folson, Davonte Howell, T’Mars McCallum and Elijah Clark finished in a school record time of 37.98 seconds at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on June 12 in Eugene, Oregon. It was the the program’s first national title in the 4×100 since 1983 and the fourth-fastest in NCAA history.

Four other relay teams never crossed the line. Auburn, the two-time defending champion, had run an NCAA-record 37.75 in the semifinal, but had a botched handoff on the last exchange. Arkansas, the reigning SEC champion, also dropped its baton, along with Oregon and Houston.

McCallum said staying clean through a race of chaos starts with a focus on winning, even in practice.

“In the moment we can’t really worry about anything else, just what we can control,” McCallum said on June 18. “We came to practice every time with the idea of, ‘OK, we’ve got to make sure this is fixed, because we know if we run that time, we can win.’ “

It was the final event of McCallum’s college career. It didn’t fully hit until the long flight home to Knoxville.

“I was like, we really did it,” he said. “Now we have a school record, the first team to ever go under 38 seconds here.”

Whether belief had anything to do with what went wrong in those four other lanes isn’t something Tennessee’s runners can answer. It’s exactly what they point to for why theirs didn’t.

Clark, a freshman who ran the anchor leg, said winning was just a matter of starting the race.

“We knew we had it the whole time,” he said. “No matter who did what, what happened, we knew what the outcome would come to.”

Ross said the victory wasn’t a surprise inside the program either.

“I wouldn’t say unsung,” Ross said. “I’ve watched this team all year long, and we were expecting to come out of there with the championship. It was a tight competition down to the last event.”

Tennessee finished third in the men’s team standings with 46 points, its best total since 2002.

Howell, a junior who ran the second leg, said the belief behind the relay team’s confidence was built long before the race.

“Three of the four of us already ran under 10 seconds,” he said. “Last year we all trained together during the summer, all lived together. We already had the bond, and adding the freshman on anchor was just a cherry on top. He figured it out at SECs, ran a 10.1, season’s best, and we trusted him to bring it home.”

Clark said the title is already part of something bigger to him.

“The goal is to always make history,” said Clark, who was hired by Tennessee four years ago after a successful run at North Carolina A&T. “It’s been one of my dreams. To be able to be on the wall, especially at a school like this, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

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