Jim Knowles had a good Saturday.

Actually, a real fucking good Saturday. Too good, maybe. His defense did more than slow Texas down. It exposed Texas — and Arch Manning — as straight-up ass.

If Texass was ass, Tennessee’s defense wasn’t just improved. It had become the one functioning thing left in this shit-show season.

Which led RustyVol to the obvious question:

“If Texas was ass, what does that really make our defense? Are we just less ass?”

That was not the reassurance Jim Knowles had earned. A lot of ass.

Rest easy, Jim Knowles. Help is on the way.

Sure. Knowles put on a classic defensive coaching clinic, and the gaudy numbers back it up: Texas finished with 262 yards, 61 on the ground and 14 first downs. Tennessee sacked Arch Manning six times, held Texas to 3-of-12 on third down and kept him out of the touchdown-pass business entirely.

Six sacks. His squad registered six sacks.

Out of curiosity, I went looking through the Texas message boards afterward for the obvious reaction — the offensive line sucks, fire everybody, somebody missed a stunt, somebody got whipped.

Nothing.

Not one thread.

Apparently you can give up six sacks and still avoid a full-scale message-board OL execution.

That should have bought Knowles a quiet Sunday at JasonVols22’s Wears Valley Church of God of the Nazerene.

Vols4Life was not ready to authorize him a day of rest.

“Texas and Arch sucked ass. Is Knowles really that good?”

There it was. Critical thinking at the operational level.

Knowles had finally fixed the defense so thoroughly that the board had to decide Texas simply sucked.

This is the reward for good work around the Board. More work.

Through four games, Tennessee is allowing roughly 15.5 points and 282 yards per game. Knowles’ defense has 19 sacks. Opponents are converting about 36 percent of their third downs. Furman scored 9. Georgia Tech scored 24. Kennesaw State scored 9. Texas scored 20.

Texas had been averaging roughly 417 yards per game before Tennessee. In Knoxville: 262.

The charts were persuasive. JasonVols22 had questions.

“If GT scored 24 and TexASS only got 20 then dont that make GT offense more better and Kennesaw OL was better to?”

The board met this with equal parts of bewilderment, derision and reluctant agreement.

Nobody liked the question.

A shocking number of users thought he might be correct.

Knowles Should Probably Check the Notes

Three weeks earlier, nobody was wondering whether Knowles was secretly good. The defense sucked. The coverage was soft. The linebackers were wrong. Knowles was wrong. Jeremiah Telander had somehow become personally responsible for several square miles of Tennessee grass.

At Georgia Tech, the early diagnosis required no charts:

“This defense sucks.”

Volnavyman watched Tennessee protect a lead and went straight to the headset:

“Got a lead and now just gonna play soft coverage and give up yards and points. They all do it. It’s infuriating lol.”

A little later:

“I don’t get the defensive philosophy in the 3rd quarter. We just handed them 7 points and confidence.”

Knowles was receiving live technical assistance now.

Telander was the easier button. After Furman, rkc1234 had seen enough:

“I think he’s slow and a step behind. Saturday I never heard his name.”

From there, Telander got moved to the middle, the edge, a rotation and somewhere near the bench. By the end of the thread the board had given him more positions than Tennessee had.

Somebody then made the rookie mistake of suggesting the board does not decide who plays.

Of course not. The board makes recommendations. Tennessee is free to ignore them and live with what happens next. The thread will still be there Sunday morning.

These are men with old film, newer televisions, Teams accounts and enough free time to notice a linebacker’s first step from three counties away. Some recommendations are genius. Others arrive at 1:17 in the morning after six bourbons. The board supplies the wheat and the chaff. Figuring out which is which is Tennessee’s problem.

OakVol allowed that Knowles had “that side of the ball looking assignment sound and looking better for sure.” Then came the qualifier: Texas had an “abysmal offense.”

There went the good news.

One small problem: the bad offense still scored 20.

Pantone noticed:

“If that offense is as bad as everybody says it is, 20 points isn’t exactly a parade.”

Knowles was now boxed in. Hold down a good offense and apparently it was never good. Let a bad offense score 20 and the defense still sucks.

Knowles, your old ass is back on the clock.

Arch Manning caught some collateral damage. TennesseeTanDip:

“Put Smith on the back of that jersey and that kid is holding a clipboard.”

Then JasonVols22 stumbled back in and solved the entire argument:

“If Texas is bad and scored 20 then our defense might still be bad just better bad now.”

That was it. Three weeks of film study, statistics, personnel arguments and defensive philosophy reduced to better bad now.

Nobody improved upon it.

Knowles survived Texas.

Auburn is next. Somewhere in East Tennessee, a man has spent three straight nights whispering into Microsoft Teams after 10 p.m.

His wife is starting to wonder if he has a sidepiece.

He does. It’s Jim Knowles.