Carol Muschamp sensed that her husband had reached a breaking point during his one-year sabbatical from coaching in 2025.
After the couple moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to be closer to their son Whit, a backup quarterback at Vanderbilt, Will Muschamp picked up several of his wife's hobbies.
Muschamp accompanied her to Pilates sessions and pickleball and tennis matches. When Muschamp decided he needed a hobby, he started playing golf again, taking lessons and spending countless hours at the driving range and on courses.
"It was like he was training for the PGA Tour or something," Carol Muschamp said. "He took it very seriously."
But when Muschamp started going to the grocery store every day, his wife knew he was bored.
"What do you want for dinner?" Muschamp asked Carol each morning.
"I don't know, Will," she would say. "We haven't eaten breakfast yet."
So when Texas coach Steve Sarkisian unexpectedly called in early December 2025 to inquire about Muschamp's interest in the Longhorns' not-yet-open defensive coordinator position, he didn't need much of a sales pitch.
Muschamp had worked as the Longhorns' defensive coordinator from 2008 to 2010 and was named then-coach Mack Brown's coach-in-waiting (remember when that was a thing?), putting him in line to succeed Brown whenever he retired. But then Muschamp left to replace Urban Meyer as Florida's coach in December 2010.
The Muschamps still have many friends in Austin, and the empty nesters thought their two sons (Jackson was a backup quarterback at Georgia and now works with agent Jimmy Sexton at Creative Artists Agency) would visit them more often because there's so much to do in Texas' state capitol.
Plus, Texas could offer Muschamp the resources and players he would need to help Sarkisian build a team that could win a national championship, similar to the defenses he coached at Georgia, his alma mater, when the Bulldogs won back-to-back national titles under his good friend Kirby Smart in 2021 and 2022.
Despite their myriad connections -- Muschamp and Sarkisian worked for Nick Saban and are represented by Sexton -- they didn't know each other well.
By their third or fourth phone call, Sarkisian was ready to offer Muschamp the job.
"I was getting ready to fly him out here to try to get the deal done," Sarkisian said. "He said his wife was already in Austin. I thought, 'Well, that's a good sign.'"
Muschamp was ready to get back in coaching -- and so was his wife.
"I honestly did not think he was going to go back to coaching, and I don't think he would have taken just any job," Carol said. "But the fact we lived in Texas before, and Texas is a place where you can win, everything just kind of fell into place and lined up. The fun is winning, as you know."
On Dec. 18, 2025, Sarkisian made the surprising announcement that he was firing defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, who had been a finalist for the Broyles Award (top assistant coach) the season before, and replacing him with Muschamp. Sarkisian also let defensive passing game coordinator Duane Akina go.
A year after the Longhorns finished 13-3 and reached the College Football Playoff semifinals with the No. 3 scoring defense in the country, they allowed 30 points or more in four of their last five regular-season games in 2025 and missed the CFP after being ranked No. 1 in the preseason.
"I've obviously got a ton of respect for Will from a distance, having watched his defenses and competed against him," Sarkisian said. "With the fiery nature of his coaching, I felt like he would be a great fit for what I felt like we needed to be moving forward in the SEC."
Heading into Saturday night's game at No. 14 LSU, Texas' defense is a big reason the Longhorns are still very much alive in the SEC title and CFP hunts. Though quarterback Arch Manning and the offense have been up and down, the defense has largely shown up every week.
Texas ranks third in the SEC in scoring defense (17.4 points) and total defense (280.1 yards) and fourth in run defense (100.3 yards) and passing defense (179.8).
Last week at Missouri, the score was tied at 20 entering the fourth quarter in a game the Longhorns couldn't afford to lose. The UT defense forced three straight three-and-outs and made a fourth-down stop with 53 seconds left to secure a 34-20 victory. The Tigers gained 12 yards on 12 plays in the fourth quarter.
"You win championships because you play great defense," Sarkisian said. "There's been a lot of great offensive football teams that didn't win championships because of those games when the offense isn't clicking on all cylinders. Do you have a defense that can shut an opponent down and maybe even score on defense?
"That's why we've seen those great championship teams over the years. Even in recent history, Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan and those back-to-back years at Georgia, they played great defense. The offenses were good, but they were great on defense."
Texas has been much more aggressive on defense than it was a year ago. Under Muschamp, the Longhorns are bringing pressure 32% of the time, which ranks seventh in the SEC. They're blitzing 28% of the time, compared with 21% in 2025, according to data from ESPN Research.
"I think there's a mindset component for sure, but there is a schematic component, too," Sarkisian said. "I felt like we needed to play a little bit more in-your-face defense and a little bit more aggressive, attacking style. We needed to create more negative plays and be tighter in coverage."
Take for instance, the second half of Texas' second game this season. Against then-No. 1 Ohio State on Sept. 12, the Longhorns trailed 23-3 entering the fourth quarter. Muschamp dialed up more heat, and UT's cornerbacks pressed Buckeyes receiver Jeremiah Smith, who had torched them for 164 yards on eight catches with one touchdown in the first three quarters. Smith didn't catch a pass in the fourth.
"We kind of switched it up at halftime," Texas linebacker Justin Cryer said. "Coach Muschamp trusted us to go out there and play a little more man coverage. We were out there pressuring the quarterback a little more. We played tighter coverage. We were trying to get the ball back as fast as possible."
The Longhorns rallied from a 20-point deficit for an improbable 24-23 victory. The Buckeyes managed only a field goal and 129 yards of offense in the second half.
Two weeks later in a 20-17 win at then-No. 14 Tennessee, the Longhorns had 10 sacks, including five by edge rusher Colin Simmons.
The Longhorns rank fourth in the SEC with 27 sacks and are tied for third with 62 tackles for loss. They're doing a better job of getting off the field on third down (31.7%), and they're keeping opponents out of the end zone once they reach the red zone. They've allowed teams to score touchdowns only 39% of the time after reaching the 20-yard line, best in the SEC, compared with 62% last season.
Sarkisian said his players went through three phases of becoming acclimated to Muschamp's sometimes fiery coaching style, which earned him the moniker "Coach Boom" in previous stops at LSU, Auburn, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia.
"I think there's an initial feeling like a kid who gets a new toy, right?" Sarkisian said. "Everybody's really excited. And then there was a moment of like, 'Oh, wait. He's really like this every day?' There was definitely that moment. And then there's, 'I appreciate that he's like this every day. I'm getting better as a player. We're getting better as a defense because of the level of intensity and intent that he brings every single day to meetings and practices.'"
When UT players learned that Muschamp was taking over the defense, many of them recalled watching a video of him punching a whiteboard during halftime of a game against Colorado on Oct. 10, 2009. The No. 2 Longhorns were trailing 14-10, and Muschamp was incensed that his defense kept getting beat on the same play with a corner blitz.
"It's gap control," Muschamp said, as he designed a defense with a dry-erase marker.
Then, he punched the whiteboard.
"Everybody just do your job!" Muschamp screamed. "Do you understand that?"
An Austin burger joint spoofed the video in a TV commercial after Texas announced Muschamp was coming back, offering him free burgers for life.
"When I got the call, I kid you not, the first thing I thought about was that video," defensive lineman Hero Kanu said. "I was on Instagram and saw the video of him punching a whiteboard."
Or there's the video of Muschamp losing it with officials after Auburn was called for a late hit on Alabama quarterback Jake Coker during the 2015 Iron Bowl that resulted in a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct on Muschamp.
Or the one of Muschamp and Saban going berserk almost simultaneously during a game while at LSU.
"Tough love, but he's a great coach," Texas safety Jelani McDonald said. "When he first got here, I was just excited because I knew that he ran an aggressive defense. We always had the dogs, and we just needed someone to give us that challenge to be better than what we've shown."
If Texas defenders had any question about what Muschamp expected from them, he provided the answer during the spring, when he showed up to practice wearing a black T-shirt that read, "NT=NP."
The acronym stood for "No thud equals no play."
"If you don't thud at practice, that means you're not going to be a good tackler," Muschamp said at the time. (He wasn't made available for an interview for this report, per Sarkisian's policy of not allowing media access to assistant coaches during the season.) "The best defenses I've been a part of, they tackled extremely well. And right now in offensive football, you better be able to tackle and play in space.
"So we got some guys, not many, they don't want to thud at practice. I call it a turn down. If you turn down too much, you won't get on the bus to go to the game. You'll be watching it from home. So if you don't thud, you won't play."
Even at age 55, Muschamp hasn't mellowed much.
"He still brings it every day, I know that's for sure," Whit Muschamp said. "You kind of see his personality and how he calls the defense now. They're very structured, and they play tough and physical. They have a lot of fun, and I know he's having fun, too. It's fun to watch."
Carol Muschamp has grown to accept her husband's outbursts in games during their 27-year marriage. The great irony of their relationship is that she worked as an anger management coach before they were married.
"Apparently, I'm good at it because you see how Will acts on the sidelines," she joked.
They say opposites attract. While Carol specialized in helping people find their happy place, Will seemingly works hard to make sure that no one finds theirs on his team's sideline.
When Muschamp was coaching at Florida, she stayed in Gainesville with their young sons when the Gators went on the road because the boys had games of their own. She remembers watching her husband explode on the sideline during one contest. Her boys stopped the broadcast to watch it again.
"Oh, my God," one of the boys said. "What is Dad doing?"
"I would say he's having an EO, and that stood for emotional outburst," Carol Muschamp said.
Soon, the boys were repeating what their mother had told them, "There's Dad having that EO again."
Though Muschamp has yet to have a sideline outburst this season to match the ones that became legendary at his other SEC jobs, he has made a Texas-sized influence on the Longhorns.
"Even though we've been doing great, he wants us to be excellent," Kanu said. "You can definitely feel the fire under our butts. He's bringing the energy every day, and I love it."
