FootballScoop is proud to announce that Terry Joseph and Blake Gideon (Texas) are the 2024 FootballScoop Defensive Backs Coaches of the Year presented by AstroTurf as selected by prior winners.
The only program to reach the final 4-team College Football Playoff and the initial 12-team edition, Texas did so in different ways. The 2023 Longhorns won a series of tight games by leaning on their passing game and run defense. In 2024, Texas largely dominated through its defense, and that defense was led by a best-in-the-nation secondary.
Heading into its College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Peach Bowl, Texas ranks second in the country in pass efficiency defense. Opposing passers have completed a respectable 59.3 percent of their 408 attempts against Texas, but those 242 completions gained just 2,196 yards. That 5.4 yards per attempt average leads the nation.
Those 242 completions resulted in seven touchdowns, second fewest nationally, and Texas is also tied for second with 20 interceptions. The Longhorns also had a pick-six called back due to an unrelated penalty.
Through 14 games, Texas has only surrendered touchdown passes in four of them -- while intercepting at least one pass in 12 contests, including the last eight. A few season highlights:
-- vs. Colorado State: 13-of-24 for 74 yards (3.1 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 2 INTs
-- vs. UTSA: 21-of-30 for 132 yards (4.4 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 1 INT
-- vs. ULM: 11-of-25 for 54 yards (2.2 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 2 INTs
-- vs. Georgia: 23-of-41 for 175 yards (4.3 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 3 INTs
-- vs. Florida: 12-of-25 for 132 yards (5.3 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 2 INTs
-- vs. Texas A&M: 16-of-23 for 146 yards (6.3 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 1 INT
-- vs. Georgia: 20-of-30 for 136 yards (4.5 per attempt) with 0 TDs and 1 INT
In all, a dozen different Longhorns have swiped passes thus far this season, led by cornerback Jahdae Barron's five, most in the SEC and third most in the nation, and safety Andrew Mukuba's four.
Barron won the Thorpe Award as the nation's top defensive back, was a finalist for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the nation's top defender, and was an AP First Team All-American. Safety Michael Taaffe, a former walk-on, was the nation's highest-graded player at his position according to Pro Football Focus and was a Second Team AP All-American. Mukuba was a Third Team All-SEC honoree.
Texas's defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach, Joseph is one of six original members of Steve Sarkisian's staff still at Texas. A former Southland Conference Baseball Player of the Year as an outfielder for Northwestern State, Joseph played four seasons of minor league baseball before jumping into coaching in the Louisiana high school ranks in 1999. His first college job came as a GA at LSU in 2006, and he has since coached defensive backs for Louisiana Tech, Nebraska, Texas A&M, North Carolina and Notre Dame.
The son of a Texas high school coach and a 4-year letter-winner at Texas, Gideon began coaching at Florida in 2014 after a brief professional career. He then became a GA at Auburn and landed his first full-time role coaching defensive backs at Western Carolina in 2016. Further stops took him to Georgia State, Houston and Ole Miss before joining Steve Sarkisian's Texas staff as safeties coach in 2021. He is also UT's associate head coach for defense.
Gideon is a two-time FootballScoop Coach of the Year award winner. He was the 2019 FootballScoop Special Teams Coordinator of the Year at Houston.
The FootballScoop Coaches of the Year awards presented by AstroTurf are the only set of awards that recognize the most outstanding position coaches in college football. The finalists (Robert Blanton and Mitchell White [Miami, Ohio], Dean Broomfield and Hank Poteat [Iowa State], Chris Hampton and Joe Lorig [Oregon], Jay Hill and Jernaro Gilford [BYU], Mike Mickens [Notre Dame] and Joseph and Gideon) were selected based off of nominations by coaches, athletic directors, and athletic department personnel. The prior winners selected this year's winner.
Previous winners of the Defensive Backs Coach of the Year award are Tim Billings (Wake Forest, 2008), Everett Withers and Troy Douglas (North Carolina, 2009), Chad Glasgow and Clay Jennings (TCU, 2010), Ron Cooper (LSU, 2011), Bill Busch and Kendrick Shaver (Utah State, 2012), Jeremy Pruitt (Florida State, 2013), Dave Wommack and Jason Jones (Ole Miss, 2014), Mike Reed (Clemson, 2015), Charles Clark and Joe Tumpkin (Colorado, 2016), Anthony Campanile (Boston College, 2017), Bryan Brown and Greg Gasparato (Appalachian State, 2018), Mickey Conn and Mike Reed (Clemson, 2019), Perry Eliano and Colin Hitschler (Cincinnati, 2020), Phil Parker (Iowa, 2021), Aaron Henry (Illinois, 2022), and Patrick Surtain, Sr. (Florida State, 2023).
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