When the call came from Steve Sarkisian last December, the Muschamp family was ready to roll back to Austin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll go tomorrow,\u201d Carol Muschamp told her husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only one Texas,\u201d Jackson Muschamp told his father. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Will Muschamp once again became the defensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns, returning to the Forty Acres almost 15 years to the day after walking away from his title as the head coach in waiting under Mack Brown and taking on the difficult challenge of replacing Urban Meyer as the head coach for the Florida Gators.<\/p>\n
With glasses perched on the end of his nose, streaks of gray in his hair, and a few more wrinkles in his forehead, Muschamp was adamant that he\u2019d aged better than some of the reporters in the recruiting lunge at the Moncrief-Neuhaus Athletic Center on Thursday \u2014 \u201cKirk Bohls, guy\u2019s been rode hard and put up wet\u201d \u2014 but he\u2019s certainly not the same coach he was when he left Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you know now that you didn\u2019t know when you walked out of here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much time you got?\u201d Muschamp responded.<\/p>\n
The long answer would certainly take more time than the allotted 20 minutes before the breakout session with Muschamp\u2019s defensive assistants, but the short answer was \u201ca lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a coach, you live and learn and you get better as you go,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
Some of those lessons were hard earned with a 56-51 record over nine seasons as a head coach. Getting fired by Florida and South Carolina robbed Muschamp of some of that youthful ambition that led him to leave Texas the first time, too impatient to wait for Brown to finally retire.<\/p>\n
So when Muschamp was asked whether he wants to be a head coach again, his answer was quickly and resoundingly to the negative, evidence of the wisdom he\u2019s gained over the last 15 years as his failures as a head coach forced on him a recognition of his weaknesses.<\/p>\n
For Sarkisian, though, Muschamp\u2019s game-management experience gained as a head coach was enough for the Texas head coach to call his new coordinator the head coach of the defense, affording Muschamp a level of freedom and responsibility Sarkisian was unwilling to grant his former defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, unceremoniously dumped for the fiery, peppery brunet.<\/p>\n
Originally a top choice when Sarkisian left Alabama to take over the Texas program, Muschamp opted to take a lower-profile role as a defensive analyst under fellow Nick Saban disciple Kirby Smart at Georgia to spend more time with his family.<\/p>\n
With both sons now in college, Muschamp was ready to return to calling defenses himself for the first time in more than a decade working for a like-minded head coach who also worked under Saban.<\/p>\n
After Kwiatkowski was fired, co-defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen called the defense for the Citrus Bowl. On Thursday, Muschamp recalled his first impression of Sarkisian\u2019s program observing a bowl practice of a team that missed the playoff, had opt outs, and was approaching a portal window.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind, I mentally prepared myself for a bad practice, and it was awesome. It was a great practice. It was competitive,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
When practice was over, Muschamp called his wife and told her that they\u2019d made the right decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat speaks a lot to Coach Sark and the staff and the guys they recruited and the development and the culture that they have here,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
Around the Texas practice facility this spring, it\u2019s been a reunion. Brown was at practice on Thursday. The Acho brothers and Jackson Jeffcoat have been around. Ben Wells is working on the support staff. Blake Gideon is one of his assistants again after leading Muschamp\u2019s secondary in Austin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a wonderful experience,\u201d Muschamp said. \u201cEvery day has been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 15 years since the last time Muschamp was the defensive coordinator for the Longhorns, his defensive philosophy has remained consistent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that philosophically, that a lot changes \u2014 we want to defend the middle of the field, we want to play tight coverage, we want to force the quarterback to throw into tight areas, obviously, stopping the run, creating it to be a one-dimensional game,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
Muschamp\u2019s reliance on press man coverage with his cornerbacks stands in contrast to the more conservative Kwiatkowski, who preferred a more bend-but-don\u2019t-break approach with softer zone coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in denying the ball, making the quarterbacks throw the ball in some tight spots, but we\u2019re going to be multiple in what we do. You\u2019ve got to give some, some different looks. You can\u2019t live in it, but we certainly believe in getting our hands on people,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s still got that trademark intensity, too, wearing an \u201cNT = NP\u201d shirt on Thursday, which stands for \u201cno thud equals no play.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome guys, they don\u2019t want to thud at practice. I call it a turn down. If you turn down too much, you won\u2019t get on the bus to go to the game. You\u2019ll be watching it from home. So if you don\u2019t thud, you won\u2019t play. That\u2019s what this means. It\u2019s very important to me,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
What has changed is how opposing offenses approach the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was here before you know tempo was kind of the fad \u2014 everybody wanted to go fast, play fast. No one ever motioned, no one ever shifted. They just wanted to go fast, get the call in, go as fast you want to go. Now people are falling back to more of a motion-shift,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
So Muschamp appreciates the extensive use of motions and shifts by Sarkisian because it prepares his defense for game situations.<\/p>\n
The athleticism of the student managers who run routes against the defense? Not so much, prompting Muschamp to call for combine-style tryouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to match routes against some really bad athletes,\u201d Muschamp said.<\/p>\n
The further synergy between Muschamp and Sarkisian helps, though, as the Texas head coach models his practices the way Saban did, giving the defense plenty of live reps.<\/p>\n
But are there any concerns about all the time that has passed since Muschamp has called defenses?<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s like riding a bike,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the call came from Steve Sarkisian last December, the Muschamp family was ready to roll back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,536,28],"class_list":["post-244052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}