The Longhorns defense under Pete Kwiatkowski ranked 99th nationally in his first season calling the defense for Steve Sarkisian in 2021, made an impressive jump to 28th in 2022, improved again in 2023 to rank 15th nationally and peaked at 3rd nationally during the 2024 season.
Texas ranked 28th nationally last fall during their 10-3 season and shortly after the season ended, Sarkisian decided to make a change at defensive coordinator and swung for the fences in bringing Will Muschamp back to Texas in a role he previously held under Mack Brown from 2008-10 before going on to head coaching stints at Florida and South Carolina. Muschamp spent the last several seasons in a variety of roles for Kirby Smart at Georgia.
Sarkisian and Texas announced the surprising decision to part ways with Kwiatkowski, and the addition of Muschamp on the same day - back on December 18th, 2025.
On the market for the past two months, one of the most respected defensive coordinators in college football reportedly has a landing spot.
Kwiatkowski, who has spent his entire coaching career at the college level dating back to 1988, is heading to the NFL.
Ian Rapoport shares today that Kwiatkowski is being hired by the Arizona Cardinals and new head coach Mike LaFleur as defensive line coach.
Early in his career, during stops at Boise State and Snow College (JC - UT), Pete worked with the defensive line. He has spent a good chunk of his career as a coordinator, including most recently at Washington and Texas, working with the outside linebackers in addition to calling the defense.
A former defensive lineman at Boise State, Kwiatkowski has logged stops at Eastern Washington coaching the defensive line and at Montana State as the defensive coordinator in addition to stops at Boise State and Washington under legendary college head coach Chris Petersen.
In Arizona, he joins a Cardinals staff where LaFleur retained defensive coordinator Nick Rallis, who held the same title under Jonathan Gannon last season, as well as linebackers coach Cristian Garcia.
The Cardinals defense will need revamped after giving up the sixth-most yards in the NFL (over 357 per game) and fourt-most points in the league (nearly 29 per game).
Bringing Kwiatkowski on board, as well as luring Zac Etheridge away from Miami, where he helped lead the Hurricanes to the national title game as their defensive pass game coordinator and defensive backs coach, should help to infuse some new ideas. Arizona also marks Etheridge's first stop in the NFL as well.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.