Texas football makes big change on staff and will return a former defensive coordinator to lead the unit.
The Texas Longhorns were expected to have one of the top defenses in college football in 2025. They allowed 30 or more points in four of their last five games – including a 35-10 loss to Georgia that essentially took the Longhorns out of CFP contention. They had the No. 3 scoring defense in 2024 and went all the way to the CFP semifinals against Ohio State, who would become national champions. So, the backslide this season was disappointing, especially when returning several All-SEC starters.
As a result, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian fired defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski on Thursday along with defensive passing game coordinator Duane Akina. The Longhorns will bring back Will Muschamp to replace Kwiatkowski, who was the team’s coordinator since 2021. Muschamp is a familiar face to the program, as he served as Texas’ defensive coordinator from 2008 to 2010. He left to take the head coaching job with the Florida Gators. He then served as Auburn’s defensive coordinator, became South Carolina’s head coach, and has been on Kirby Smart’s staff at Georgia since 2021.
Here is the full story from Longhorns Roundtable writer Mike Fisher on the major staff shakeup.
Muschamp helped lead Texas to the BCS national championship game in 2009 with a defense that was best in the nation in several ways – No. 1 against the run, on third down, and in takeaways. He was seen as the successor to Mack Brown but left to succeed Urban Meyer at Florida instead.
"Having the opportunity to hire Will Muschamp provides us the leadership to take our defense to another level," Sarkisian said in a statement. "Will is a guy I've known for a long time, always admired and is as good of a defensive mind and coach as I've ever coached against. His defenses are relentless; he absolutely gets the best out of his staff and players and is such an extremely well-respected coach.
"I know Longhorn Nation knows him well. He led some incredible defenses here on the Forty, and I'm so fired up to be bringing him back to Texas. He'll be an awesome addition to our staff."
The Longhorns will finish their season against the Michigan Wolverines in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla. on Dec. 31.