Longhorns Defense Building Continuity Both On And Off Field

Offense is supposed to keep the team afloat while a defense is supposed to win a championship.

For Texas, the defense was good enough simply to win several games in clutch moments.

That's not entirely a bad thing. In 2021, Texas was lost in nearly every sense of the word under first-year coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski. The Horns allowed 31.1 points and 426.6 yards per game. They allowed two teams to score over 55 points in coverage despite putting up at least 40 points on the offensive side each time.

That's changed headed into Year 3 under Steve Sarkisian. The arrival of Gary Patterson changed the unit's identity, tempo and persona for the better and the results were evident in play. Texas finished top 30 in scoring defense (21.6 points per game and just outside the top-50 in total yards (368.4 yards per game).

"Most of the guys now know what the words mean. What the calls mean," Kwiatkowski said Tuesday at his year meeting with reporters. "The new guys, the young guys, the Anthony Hill's, Malik Muhammadd's, all the new freshman, they're able to be coached by the players."

Kwiatkowski is a believer in player-led programs, but that doesn't mean he's letting the defense run the show. There's a give-and-take factor between both sides, but there's also a sense of harmony and continuity.

When hired, Kwiatkowski had a previous relationship with Sarkisian and inside linebackers coach Jeff Choate. Bo Davis, Blake Gideon, and Terry Joseph were all new faces to each other and the duo, thus creating a learning gap from the jump.

Players have learned to work in rhythm with each other and the staff after three seasons, but so have coaches. Outside of Patterson, who joined the roster in 2022 following a 22-year stint with TCU, the five men hired by Sarkisian are all back in the saddle.

"The longer you are with somebody, the more you get to know each other and how you think and how guys coach their players, how they respond to criticism, the knowledge that other guys have," Kwiatkowski said. "At the end of the day, I want guys being able to coach and do from a coaching standpoint what they are good at and what they believe in. The give-and-take between us as a staff has been really good. It's been fun."

The five feature pieces of Texas' defense will be running the show on the sidelines this fall. On the field, the Longhorns are locked in with talent whose sole purpose is to knock out the competition en route to a shot at the Big 12 title game.

Headlined by linebacker Jaylan Ford, the Big 12's preseason defensive player of the year, the Longhorns return six defensive starters. Of the five open spots, three might be unofficially filled with the additions of defensive back Gavin Holmes (Wake Forest), safety Jalen Catalon (Arkansas) and defensive lineman Trill Withers (Minnesota) from the portal.

Everything now is about working on the little details. Kwiatkowski said the point of emphasis entering the year was to improve on third-down stops, sacks and forced turnovers. Last season, the Longhorns ranked 77th in sacks per game (2.08), 88th in third-down conversion rate (41.1 percent) and 104th in turnovers (14).

"Sometimes when we're in practice, we'll just drop picks and 'poo poo it.' We'll just laugh it off. Now there has to be a heightened urgency and awareness because we know how important those plays are for our team," Kwiatkowski said. "We just have to keep harping on it as coaches.

"There's no magic pill or call. We just have to keep working at it with better awareness."

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