For many, the question heading into the offseason for Texas was whether Steve Sarkisian, The Head Coach would fire Steve Sarkisian, The Play-Caller. Texas improved in each of Steve Sarkisian's first four seasons before a 9-3 regression in 2025, a year in which the offense looked a mess for much of the season.
In Sarkisian's estimation, the answer wasn't to spend less time with his offense. In fact, it was to spend more.
That was the root of Thursday's shocking move to fire renowned defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, the 2024 FootballScoop Defensive Coordinator of the Year and a 2024 Broyles Award finalist (along with safeties coach Duane Akina) and bring in Will Muschamp. Kwiatkowski offloaded coverage responsibilities to his secondary coaches. It took some time to get there (Texas was 80th in the country in pass efficiency defense in 2021), but by 2024 the Longhorns were a well-oiled machine on the back end. But after losing pass game coordinator/cornerbacks coach Terry Joseph to the New Orleans Saints and safeties coach Blake Gideon to the Georgia Tech defensive coordinator role, the secondary fell off significantly from 2024 to '25. The 2024 Longhorns finished second in pass efficiency; the 2025 team is 49th heading into the Citrus Bowl against Michigan.
Sarkisian spent time flipping back and forth between the offense and defense throughout the week and on the headsets on game day -- the fundamental role of the head coach, most would say -- but he viewed any time spent with the defense as time not spent with the offense.
"I feel very comfortable with Will being the head coach of that defense. That allows me and frees me of a little bit more time from an offensive perspective. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, I'm let him to go do his thing on defense and really be a great leader and head coach over there, which allows me to get back to doing the things that I believe I'm really good at," Sarkisian said Friday. "I looked at it, if I could go get Will Muschamp to fit this thing to not only help us get better defensively, but I think that impact is going to help us on offense, too."
Sarkisian pursued Muschamp for his defensive coordinator role when he first took the job in January 2021, but at that time Muschamp was not ready to commit the time necessary with his sons in high school. Five years later, Muschamp now has the time.
"I've always admired Will from afar. I know that even in my time at Alabama, I could hear the respect that Coach Saban had for Will. I don't respect anybody in our profession than Coach Saban, and so that played a key role," Sarkisian said.
Sarkisian hired Muschamp because of the presence he has on the defensive side of the ball, and he likes the "more in your face" style Texas will now play. But the ancillary benefit of potentially weakening the Georgia Machine doesn't hurt, either. Two seasons in, Texas is 13-1 against the rest of the SEC and 0-3 against Georgia. "His style of coaching and the way we're going to play defense is something that makes sense to me of what is needed in this conference," Sarkisian said. "It's not only, well, how do you beat Georgia? We're going to get to go against that now in practice. Can that help us down the road? Hopefully that is one of the unintended consequences."