Offensive-minded Steve Sarkisian relishes his program's stout Pete Kwiatkowski-led defense

You work your way up in coaching thanks to a specialty. Steve Sarkisian is a quarterbacks guy. Nick Saban and Pete Carroll were defensive backs coaches. Urban Meyer and Dabo Swinney were responsible for wide receivers before getting their own head coaching opportunity.

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Despite that specialty, those coaches all are responsible for the entire program they oversee. They can’t look at an administration or a fan base and say, “well my side of the ball was good, it was just the other side of the ball that struggled.” They may get one chance to reset coordinators, but that’s it. After all, those coaches (usually) are the ones that hired those coordinators.

For a coach with an obvious specialty to have quality on both sides of the ball is notable, and it’s usually what it takes to be great. When the opposite side of the ball from the head coach’s specialty outpaces his own? That’s notable, and that’s arguably happened at Texas the past two seasons.

That’s not to say Sarkisian’s offense has been moribund. The Longhorns were No. 6 in offensive SP+ in 2023 and No. 13 in 2024. But the defense, especially 2024’s unit, reached a height Sark’s Texas’ offenses have not been at.

Texas was No. 2 in defensive SP+ in 2024. Only Ohio State was ahead of them. Against the Buckeye offense, the Texas defense allowed only 21 points. That was almost two touchdowns below Ohio State’s season scoring average.

Sarkisian has not sacrificed defensive prowess for added offensive success. In fact, the offensive coach views defense as essential to championship football.

“I think for me having been on some real championship teams that have won championships and teams that have played for championships, it really starts on defense,” Sarkisian said at SEC Media Days. “All those great teams that I’ve been a part of, we had great defenses. The years when we didn’t win it, that was probably where the chink in the armor was, maybe on the defensive side.”

The defense has done its job in Texas’ title contending seasons under Sarkisian. Overseen by Pete Kwiatkowski since Sark arrived in Austin, the Longhorn defense evolved from barely-functional sieve in 2021 to arguably the best in the nation in 2024.

There’s been a variety of assistants helping Kwiatkowski. PK is now the only member of the original defensive staff still at Texas as all his prior assistants have found new roles. Texas has added new assistants at defensive line, linebacker, and at both secondary coaching spots. Yet Kwiatkowski has remained, and the Longhorn defense hasn’t skipped a beat.

And it’s helped satisfy what Sarkisian views as a requirement for his program.

“We’re forever trying to evolve,” Sarkisian said. “PK’s done a tremendous job. We’ve lost some coaches and we’ve brought in new coaches. They’ve done a good job. At the end of the day, there’s a belief in playing great defense in Austin, Texas. I think that’s probably one of the biggest misnomers about me. People think ‘oh he’s just a quarterback guy and wants to throw the ball.’ We believe in running the ball as everybody here knows on offense, and we believe in playing great defense.”

Sarkisian mentioned he believes this year’s defense may be the deepest he’s had in Austin, and once again emphasized how his program will have to rotate in plenty of players during out-of-conference games against Group of Five schools in September. But no matter who takes the field, there’s an expectation that the opponent won’t move forward. To meet that standard in 2025, Texas believes there’s a key that cannot be ignored.

“If we go out there and communicate, execute like the level we’ve been doing and even exceed it a little bit more,” Anthony Hill Jr. said at SEC Media Days on how Texas can play better defense in 2025. “I feel like we have to communicate better than we did throughout the years. And we have to execute in some of the big moments like we had last year.”

Communication will be key without players like Jahdae Barron and Andrew Mukuba in the back end. It’ll also be key for the numerous players that Sarkisian plays during non-conference home games in Austin. To see the field, they’ll have to talk. To play good defense, they’ll have to be in tune. That applies to starters and second-stringers alike.

That rotation is also to make sure that Sarkisian’s frontline players, guys like Hill, Taaffe, and Colin Simmons, are ready for the championship rounds later in the year.

“When you start playing the elite teams and against the elite teams, you’ve got to find a way to keep them out of the end zone,” Sarkisian said.

Playing elite defense requires real effort and focus from the top down. The defensive coordinator is crucial in the process, and Kwiatkowski has without a doubt rewarded the confidence and trust Sarkisian has placed in the former Washington assistant since hiring him in 2021. But that empowerment comes from the head coach. At Texas, it comes from an offensive play-calling head coach who was once an All-American quarterback.

It doesn’t always work that efficiently. But Sarkisian and Kwiatkowski have made sure that despite the leader of the Longhorns focusing on offense, Texas’ defense has not been ignored. If anything, it’s been the catalyst for Texas’ successes.

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“We’ve been proud of the work we’ve done defensively,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve grown exponentially from one year to the next. We’ve improved, and when we needed areas of improvement, we attacked it.”