Chris Jackson offers a new presence and command as Texas' wide receivers coach
For the 2021 Texas football season, the Longhorn wide receivers coach was Andre Coleman. After Coleman was not retained, UT head coach Steve Sarkisian tapped then-Pitt wide receivers coach Brennan Marion to coach the pass-catchers in Austin. Marion took the UNLV offensive coordinator job after the 2022 season, meaning Sarkisian had to find the third wide receivers coach of his tenure in Austin.
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“It has not been ideal, I’ll say that, for a lot of our kids,” Sarkisian said Monday. “Xavier (Worthy)? Jordan (Whittington)? Three years, three different receiver coaches.”
Sarkisian looked at several candidates, but he ultimately selected Jacksonville Jaguars wide receivers coach Chris Jackson to fill the position for the Longhorns and take on the additional role of passing game coordinator.
“We’re fired up that Chris Jackson is a Longhorn,” Sarkisian said in a statement on January 23. “He’s such a talented coach with a ton of football and life experience that we’ll benefit from having on our staff. Chris is a passionate and attention-to-detail guy who took a unique path to coaching, but is as good as they get when it comes to developing and preparing receivers. He’s a very well-respected coach with great work ethic who is a student of the game, and he’s a proven leader who not only helps his players improve on the field, but also builds strong relationships with them, too.
Jackson had several notable charges during his time as an assistant in the NFL. In his most recent season in the league with Jacksonville, he helped Christian Kirk and Zay Jones to 80-plus catch seasons. Kirk had 1108 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, while Jones had 823 yards and five scores.
His work done with the receivers in an offense filled with budding stars was one of several things that caught Sarkisian’s eye.
“One was stability,” Sarkisian said Monday about why Jackson appealed to him. “Two was the experience of coaching at the NFL level and what that looked like from a developmental standpoint for our players.”
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Jackson walks into a talented room that features a handful of players, but none who can truly be called proven. No receiver on the current roster has a 1000-yard season to their name.
Whittington, coming off his healthiest season as a Longhorn tallied 652 yards and one score on 50 catches last year. Worthy, the team’s leading receiver for the last two years, amassed 760 yards in a year where he played most of the second half with a broken hand.
They’re joined in the room by Georgia transfer AD Mitchell, who in an injury-hampered career has eight catches for 149 yards and four touchdowns in four career College Football Playoff games. That’s not to discount Isaiah Neyor, who is rehabbing from injury, Casey Cain, or talented freshman Johntay Cook.
Jackson’s voice was hard to miss for anyone present at the first two days of practice at the Frank Denius Fields. That voice, along with his instructional ability, has Sarkisian already happy with what he’s seen from his sole offseason assistant hire.
“I like his presence,” Sarkisian said. “I like his command. I think he shows a great deal of maturity but still has a lot of youth to the way he goes about his business.”
