There was enough shake-up among the SEC’s defensive coaching ranks this offseason to last us for two winters. In total, half of the conference will have a new defensive coordinator to start 2015, and teams have made a bushel of other defensive coaching changes. With some respected (and highly paid) names moving around, we’ll almost certainly see the impacts of these moves off the bat.

One stands above the rest, though: John Chavis at Texas A&M.

Not Quite

At both Florida and Mississippi State, which hired Geoff Collins away from Mississippi State and Manny Diaz from Louisiana Tech, there’s some rebuilding and restructuring to be done.

Diaz is a sharp defensive mind, already with two Power Five coordinator gigs under his belt, but he returns to Starkville with the cupboard quite a bit barer than it was in 2014. The Bulldogs’ best defensive players from this past season will be applying their trade on Sundays, and after the defense fell apart at the end of the year changes were coming regardless. Mississippi State doesn’t reload like some of its brethren in the West, so it may take Diaz some time to get his defense up and running.

For Collins at Florida, he joins a brand new staff. The talent that Will Muschamp recruited is still present, and he’ll have a better group to work with than what he would have had at State. With Florida going through a major rebuild on offense, even the stoutest of defenses might not be enough until Jim McElwain can recruit the type of offensive personnel he needs.

The case for Muschamp

While Auburn probably could have competed at the top of the SEC West with just an above average coordinator running the defense, they went out and got the biggest name on the market, bringing Coach Boom back to his old stomping grounds.

In 2013, Gus Malzahn’s offense was enough to carry Auburn to the BCS championship game, despite a mediocre defense. As the defense slipped in 2014, so did Auburn’s chances at a repeat in the West.

Auburn swung for the fences with Muschamp, and at Auburn it could end up going down as a great temporary fix before Muschamp inevitably leaves for a head coaching opportunity. One of the best recruiters in the country, Muschamp will refill Auburn’s coffers on defense while simultaneously striking a blow to Alabama’s recruiting stranglehold, a win-win for the Tigers.

With Malzahn’s offensive track record, he would have been able to have the Tigers prospering with just a slight upgrade at defense. Instead, he bought the penthouse apartment. It will pay dividends, but the ceiling of the team didn’t raise nearly as high as it did in College Station.

The Winner

The Aggies have been mostly pitiful defensively since moving to the SEC, ranking last in total defense each of the last two years. Former defensive coordinator Mark Snyder had plenty of talent to work with, but struggled in developing those players and finding a scheme they could all understand and play consistently.

That’s about to change.

Under Chavis, things should improve rapidly. Chief’s worst defense at LSU was ranked 26th in the nation in total defense in 2009, his first year in Baton Rouge. Even splitting the difference between that number and the No. 104 ranking Texas A&M held in 2014 would be a massive improvement. The kind of track record Chavis brings with him, with five straight top-15 defenses, is exactly what the Aggies need.

Truth be told, Texas A&M couldn’t afford to miss on this defensive coordinator hire. Kevin Sumlin is one of the highest paid coaches in the country, bringing in $5 million a year, but so far the results on the field haven’t matched up to that pay grade. The Aggies offense has been far above average for Sumlin’s three years, but has been hamstrung by the defense. The athletic department opened up its check book to make sure it got a coach with a long, distinguished record to get the defense caught up with the other side of the ball.

That need differs from Auburn, which shelled out just as much for Muschamp ($1.6-1.8 million per year) as A&M did for Chavis ($1.7 million per year). Texas A&M needed someone who would bring guaranteed, leaps-and-bounds improvement and couldn’t afford to gamble. With Muschamp off the market, Chavis became the surest thing for the Aggies.

Adding in that Sumlin and A&M stole Chavis away from an SEC West rival makes the hiring even more impressive. At LSU, Chavis was the third-highest paid defensive coordinator in the country in 2014. No one thought Chief would leave Les Miles’ staff, yet the Aggies’ offer was too enticing of an opportunity for him to pass up.

Now, instead of molding NFL prospects in the bayou, Chavis will be working his magic in College Station. The thought of Texas A&M with just an average defense, which they haven’t come close to since their inaugural SEC season, should be enough to send shivers down the spines of offensive coordinators.

While Chavis isn’t a vaunted recruiter, he has a reputation for churning out NFL-ready talent and top-notch defenses that should be attractive to recruits. We’ve already seen the sway he can have with recruits: five-star defensive tackle Daylon Mack decommitted from the Aggies and revealed interest in LSU, only to drop LSU after Chavis left. Mack is now considering coming back into the fold at Texas A&M, likely thanks to Chavis’ arrival.

The pull of playing for an established, nationally respected coordinator should be more than enough to help Texas A&M, smack in the middle of one of the best recruiting states in the nation, keep hauling in top-10 recruiting classes. If Chavis can turn the Aggies defense around and get it close to the level his LSU defenses performed at, Texas A&M could be contending for national championships in the next few years.

While Muschamp, Collins and Diaz were all good hires in their own right, none have the potential to swing the entire conference like Chavis does.