Productive Penn State defender following Jim Knowles to Tennessee
Published:
Another productive Penn State defensive player has decided to follow Jim Knowles from State College to Knoxville for the 2026 season.
Transfer linebacker Amare Campbell announced on Friday night that he has committed to Tennessee. On3’s Hayes Fawcett shared the news of yet another Penn State-Tennessee connection taking place for next season.
Knowles’ move from defensive coordinator at Penn State in 2025 to DC at Tennessee in 2026 was already paying dividends on Thursday night with former 4-star defensive lineman Xavier Gilliam transferring from State College to Knoxville.
One night after Gilliam followed Knowles to Tennessee, Campbell is doing the same, and he’ll have one more season of eligibility to make a difference alongside Knowles in Knoxville. The junior was a tackling machine at Penn State this past season, piling up 103 total tackles, 64 of them solo, along with 3 sacks, 1 pass defended, 1 forced fumble and 1 fumble recovery.
The 6-foot, 231-pound Campbell is a Virginia product who played his first 2 years of college ball at North Carolina before transferring to Penn State for the 2025 season.
Campbell has played 37 games across his time at UNC and Penn State, making 27 starts. He has registered 193 tackles, 22 tackles-for-loss and 10.5 sacks so far during his collegiate career, numbers he plans to build heavily on in 2026 while playing for a very familiar defensive coordinator.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
