By JOHN MOOREHOUSE
Seeing Anthony Poindexter named to the Tennessee coaching staff for the 2026 season sparked a trip down memory lane for me.
Poindexter went to Virginia, like me, and my time in Charlottesville overlapped with his years on the football team. Poindexter will coach safeties — the position he played — for the Vols, and is listed as a co-defensive coordinator.
If Vol fans are looking for someone to instruct safeties who played the position at a very high level, they’ve found their man. Poindexter was a consensus All-American and the ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 1998, even though that season ended early due to a nasty leg injury that October against NC State. He received first-team All-America status in 1997 and was a three-time all-conference choice in the ACC. He was involved in arguably the most famous play in program history, one of two players who stopped Warrick Dunn at the 1-yard-line as time ran out and Virginia beat Florida State in 1995. He’s a College Football Hall of Famer (enshrined in the 2020 class), and his 342 career tackles remains the highest total all time among ACC defensive backs.
Let’s focus in on the tackles for a moment, because it wasn’t just that Poindexter — who was simple known as, and still referred to until nowadays as “Dex” on Grounds — had a nose for getting to the ball carrier. He was also arguably the hardest hitter I saw in person in my years covering college football. The only other guy who came close was the late Sean Taylor at Miami. He played the game relentlessly, and with no fear. Rather, he often instilled fear in the opposition with the hits he delivered.
Just how hard did Poindexter hit? Well, before he got to Charlottesvlle, during his high school career at Jefferson Forest, he hit an opposing player so hard on a crossing route that he ruptured the kid’s spleen.
Oh, and Poindexter was just 15 years old at the time.
“Anthony was probably the best safety in the last couple of years. He was the best safety in the country in my opinion,” George Welsh, Poindexter’s coach at Virginia, said in an article on the team web site in 2002 when Poindexter returned to the program as a graduate assistant, beginning his college coaching career. “He was just a great athlete, great instincts, very hard hitting, brutal in a lot of ways.”
You can get an idea of what kind of player Poindexter was in this video, which played when Virginia retired his jersey:
Poindexter was never the same after his injury in 1998. Ironically, he was a projected first-round NFL draft pick in 1997 but chose to come back for his final year of college ball. His pro career never planned out but he’s had a long and successful coaching career that now sees him following new Vols defensive coordinator Jim Knowles to Rocky Top.
In an interview with longtime Virginia sports writer Jerry Ratcliffe prior to his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, Poindexter recalled telling Welsh he had decided to come back to school.
“I said, ‘Coach, I’m coming back. I want to play for you. I want to be part of this team,’ ” Poindexter recalled. “He’s like, ‘I appreciate that, but if you need to leave and make money to take care of your family, I understand.’ It was his way of saying, You’ve got my blessing if you want to leave this program right now.
“It wasn’t like you didn’t do enough for me. I was looking for his approval to come back but I didn’t think he was going to say that. I really sat back in my seat and I’m like, ‘Who is this man?’ After he said that to me that day, I knew it was about me, not him. I would have run through a wall for him.”
Tennessee’s defense, and the defensive backfield in particular, faced major scrutiny in the 2025 season. Injuries in the secondary in particular meant the Vols never had their ideal complement of talent available in that position group. With a change to the staff and a new safeties coach, it will be interesting to see how the performance from that group changes, considering the ferocious way that Poindexter played the game.