Pete Kwiatkowski returned to his schematic roots to turn the 2024 Texas defense into a juggernaut

For the first three years of his tenure as Texas defensive coordinator, Pete Kwiatkowski had future NFL draft picks at his disposal at defensive tackle. At first it was Moro Ojomo and Keondre Coburn, two players taken late on day three of the 2023 NFL Draft. During the 2023 season, Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat manned the middle. Both were All-Americans. Murphy became a first-round pick and Sweat won the Outland Trophy.

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After that group of defensive tackles left for the professional ranks, Texas still had quality players in the trenches in Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton. Depth, however, was an unknown ahead of the 2024 season. Only two defensive tackles in the 2024 class in Alex January and Melvin Hills made it to campus. The Longhorns had to engage in heated recruitments for transfer portal prospects, an area that can add numbers to the roster but provides an unknown return on investment.

As a result, Kwiatkowski had to make an adjustment. No longer could he trust the front by itself to be the only part of the defense needed to stop the run. In looking for a solution, he went back to the roots of what made him a sought-after defensive coordinator for Steve Sarkisian.

Kwiatkowski elected to run considerably more of what he described Friday as “post style defense.” Other terms for that include single-high, or middle-of-field-closed. It was the defensive structure that made his Washington Husky defenses so successful under former UW head coach Chris Petersen and alongside veteran defensive back coach Jimmy Lake.

The first three seasons saw Texas play more middle-of-the-field-open with two safeties deployed deep. It was a system familiar to the players who were with Texas in 2020 but a bit foreign to Kwiatkowski. That was evident in the struggles on that side of the ball during Texas’ 5-7 2021 campaign. The Longhorns finished No. 86 in defensive SP+ and fared worse in raw yardage stats.

The 2022 season saw Texas welcome Gary Patterson to the program to assist in making the two-deep coverages, namely quarters, work a bit better for the Longhorns. Patterson and Kwiatkowski made their efforts work as the Longhorns jumped all the way up to No. 15 in defensive SP+. Patterson was not part of the 2023 staff, but his influence assisted the Longhorns in how they played two-high coverages to strong effect. Texas crept up to No. 13 in defensive SP+, playing great football all season until it ran into a buzzsaw in the form of Michael Penix and three NFL wide receivers on top of their game.

Players like Sweat and Murphy could hold a run defense together almost via their own efforts. That they did, helping Texas post the No. 3 rush defense in 2023 in terms of yards per game and the No. 5 defense in terms of yards per rush.

Without them, Texas made the structural change to run more middle-of-the-field closed coverages in order to bring veteran safeties like Michael Taaffe, Derek Williams, and Andrew Mukuba into the box and closer to the line of scrimmage. It worked to profound effect. The Longhorns followed up a 2023 where they finished No. 3 in rush defense with a 2024 where Texas currently ranks No. 10.

What’s more, the Longhorns have improved elsewhere, too. At this point following the first round of the College Football Playoff, Texas is No. 2 in defensive SP+ trailing only the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The move to middle-of-the-field-closed coverage put much more pressure on the Longhorn secondary. Bringing a defender into the box means there was one fewer defender for the back end. Yet Texas’ secondary, led by Thorpe Award winner Jahdae Barron, has made passing a nearly impossible task for opponents. Texas is No. 2 in pass defense, up 114 spots from its 2023 finish. Plus, the Longhorns are No. 2 in team passing efficiency defense and No. 2 in scoring defense. All this came without Williams for half of the season, who was lost for the year following the Oklahoma game.

“Then from the secondary standpoint playing with a middle closed we were able to play tighter coverage, play with more outside leverage on a lot of the route combinations that we’re seeing,” Kwiatkowski said. “Credit to those guys. They took their growth and learning to a new level. As much as we like to tell them to stay off social media and not listen to outside noise, they hear it, and so they knew they had to get better. Starting in January all the way to camp to now, they’ve attacked that challenge.”

The main characters in Texas’ secondary all have corner backgrounds. Barron, Malik Muhammad, and Jaylon Guilbeau all arrived at Texas as corners. Taaffe was a cornerback in high school. Mukuba played some Star, or nickel, at Clemson and drew corner-like coverage responsibilities.

That group has been sticky all year, despite being challenged by a number of offenses. Recall that middle-of-the-field closed coverages usually look like Cover 3 or even Cover 1. That doesn’t leave a lot of over-the-top help for defenders in isolation, but it’s still a look that, with the exception of Clemson, opponents have failed to exploit.

“We believe in our guy and that’s kind of what (offenses) think if you see press, you see one-high, let’s take the fade and just worst case that happens they get a P.I,” Taaffe said Friday. “The best case that happens is they catch it and score a touchdown. But they’ve done that many, many times in the last 14 games, and it’s gone well for the good guys most of the time.”

The key is Barron. A consensus All-American and the Thorpe Award winner, Barron can be left on an island against the best receivers an opponent can offer and succeed with little help. Sometimes he turns the game into a 10-on-10 operation, removing or at least minimizing the threat of the wide receiver across from him and allowing for safeties to watch for a run or a deep post route.

“At the end of the day it’s mano a mano, so just playing my technique and kind of understanding what routes I can get, what’s the route tree, what way did he steer me, and just playing with good leverage,” Barron said. “I think that’s the honest standpoint. That’s what I try to do.”

This is in addition to some moonlighting as the Star, his previous position, or even as a linebacker in obvious passing situations. He’s been critical for Kwiatkowski.

“There’s just subtle little things knowing that you got a guy that can lock his area of the field down,” Kwiatkowski.

All of those secondary defenders have answered the call. Barron earned his accolades. Taaffe was named a second-team All-American by the Associated Press. Mukuba was third-team All-SEC.

Their work in coverage has made it all possible. The Austin trio of Barron, Taaffe, and Mukuba all have coverage grades above 90.0 according to Pro Football Focus. Muhammad himself has a defensive PFF grade above 70.0. Guilbeau, in a position often put into conflict by offenses, has a respectable grade of 66.5 and is fifth on the team in tackles.

It hasn’t solely been a secondary effort. Anthony Hill earned All-America accolades from The Sporting News and the Associated Press. Collins got a second-team nod from the AP.

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But the change in personnel necessitated an adjustment from Kwiatkowski to a style he was far more familiar with. He’s had the right players to run it this season, and they’ve more often than not been in the right places to allow Texas to contend for a national title thanks to its defense.