Will Muschamp has brought 'boom' back to Texas' defense - ESPN

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