What Pete Kwiatkowski expects to change on defense for Texas in 2024

Pete Kwiatkowski took the podium today for the what’s often been his sole, annual press conference as the Texas defensive coordinator. The Longhorn defense is often a little bit of an afterthought in the Steve Sarkisian era due to the stacked talent in the offensive room and the fact this coming season will boast four returning starters on the O-line, quarterback Quinn Ewers, and multiple exciting skill talents.

[Sign up for Inside Texas and get ONE MONTH for $1!]

Last year’s Texas defense ended up having a big impact on the season due to its outstanding run defense and occasionally imbalanced results. T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy completely dominated games in the box yet Texas’ defense struggled against some of the better passing attacks on the schedule.

“We gave up some yards but we had the ball thrown on us the 3rd most in the country,” Kwiatkowski noted at the presser. “When teams throw the ball a lot, they’re going to get yards, so we’d like to have those numbers down but that’s not the end all, be all. Our pass efficiency defense was 33rd in the nation which is respectable.”

Next season will have different star players defining the identity of the defense and thus a different challenge in building on last year’s success while trying to get closer to building a National Championship team.

“Nope. I mean we got guys, it’s tough to replace those two dudes,” was Kwiatkowski’s response to whether the Texas defense has another Sweat or Murphy to plug into the team next season. “I think our depth’s gonna be good. How productive they’re gonna be compared to what those two were last year is something we’ll find out.”

Elsewhere on the defense there are multiple players who are expected to emerge to help define the team as Sweat and Murphy did a year ago. One obvious contender is former 5-star recruit and sophomore linebacker Anthony Hill.

“That’s (Mike) his natural position,” Kwiatkowski said of Hill’s move to middle linebacker. “We put him off the edge as a freshman, there’s less thinking, you just go and play ball and you saw him do that, making some big plays. But his natural position is inside linebacker. Moving him into that Jaylan Ford role, we do a pretty good job of moving those guys around so you’re still going to see him off the edge doing some things that way but, he just has a nose for the ball.

“I joked with him last year and in the offseason, ‘you’re a hell of a football player but you’re not a very good linebacker.’ It was a compliment because he has a nose for the ball, he makes plays, but the details of playing linebacker he needed to get better at, and he has.”

Hill is not the only player who’s grown up considerably this offseason. Back-up Star (nickel) Jaylon Guilbeau was also singled out for his improvement.

“Jaylon has had an unbelievable, outstanding offseason,” Kwiatkowski said. “Getting him back to where he was two seasons ago, confidence-wise, we’re starting to see that again. Optimistic. If Guilbeau can step up we can do some different things with Jahdae (Barron).”

The most obvious use for returning star Barron would be outside at cornerback, but Kwiatkowski noted he can play at safety as well.

Overall Kwiatkowski noted the team has been emphasizing team ball in preparation of building a new defense for the fall that improves upon a year ago while forging a new identity.

“The big emphasis this year is the fundamentals of football,” Kwiatkowski said. “Block destruction, across the board, defensive backs, linebackers, D-line, they do that all the time. Creating turnovers, creating fumbles, that’s an emphasis. We got 16 picks last year, which is pretty good, would just like to get some more production in terms of punching the ball out. And then tackling, we did a little study, we did a lot better job with an 88% tackling success. If we could just bump that up 5%, a lot of those pass yards we gave up would go down.”

Anyone can look back on the loss to Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout and recognize the truth of that observation.

This offseason Sark brought in a new co-defensive coordinator to replace Jeff Choate, who left to become head coach at Nevada, and brought in Johnny Nansen who appears to be working well with PK early on.

“It’s been great,” PK said of the partnership. “I worked with Johnny at Montana State, I’ve known Johnny for a long time. He’s been awesome, been bringing in some stuff that he did at Arizona that’s gonna help us and he does a good job with his linebackers, he’s a good recruiter… it’s been awesome.”

Nansen is coaching linebackers, but also clearly brought some fresh ideas about how to change up the defense to maximize this year’s roster. On pass defense PK laid out their path to improvements.

“Just being a little bit tighter in coverage, breaking on the ball a little bit better, contesting some more throws, and creating more incompletions,” Kwiatkowski said. “How can we affect the quarterback? Doesn’t always have to be sacks but they gotta feel us, we gotta make them uncomfortable with the rush. The other part of it is being able to change up the pre-snap looks. Not just showing the shell we’re going to end up being in, trying to confuse quarterbacks that way. And then like I said, tackling. Those easy throws, you get them on the ground they don’t get RAC (run after catch). All that stuff adds up.”

It’s easy to imagine the 2024 Texas defense upgrading the overall coverage with Guilbeau and Barron, positioning Hill to blitz and attack, and perhaps borrowing some ideas from Nansen’s successful formula at Arizona a year ago. Of course Nansen preferred to play more single-high defense with a post safety, and Texas has often played in two-high defenses since PK came aboard in 2021.

Might Texas spin their safeties into more single-high coverage next year in a return to what’s been traditional for both PK and Nansen as part of their adjustment for the coming season?

“Yeah, there’s no question there’s a place for post defense and… we’ll see,” PK responded with a smile.

[Subscribe to the Inside Texas YouTube channel!]

PK and the defensive staff are emphasizing the fundamentals which make every kind of defense successful while the scheme and formations are likely to evolve in order to suit a new generation of playmakers who are different than the two departing behemoths they had last year at defensive tackle.