Texas to hire former position coach, current ACC DC to defensive staff, per report
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Texas is close to bringing back a former player who served on their staff for four seasons before heading to the ACC.
Blake Gideon, who spent 2025 with Georgia Tech after four seasons as the Longhorns’ safeties coach, is set to return as the team’s secondary coach and defensive passing game coordinator, according to a Tuesday night report from CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz.
Gideon was a four-year starter at Texas at safety, where his defensive coordinator was Will Muschamp. After a brief NFL career, he joined Muschamp’s staff at Florida in 2014 as a quality control coach before a stint at Auburn in 2015 as a graduate assistant while Muschamp was DC there. Gideon was then defensive backs coach at Western Carolina for two seasons, followed by stops at Georgia State as cornerbacks coach, Houston as special teams coordinator and safeties coach, and Ole Miss as special teams coordinator. In 2021, he was part of Steve Sarkisian‘s initial staff in Austin, joining as safeties coach.
After four seasons, he landed at Georgia Tech in 2025 as its defensive coordinator after Tyler Santucci departed to become the Baltimore Ravens’ linebackers coach. He’ll now return to Texas as Muschamp begins his second stint as Longhorns DC.
The Texas defense was about in the middle of the pack or a bit below it in the SEC in 2025. It was 8th in total yardage, 12th against the pass, and fifth against the run. It gave up 20.3 points per game, sixth in the conference. After the season ended, defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski was fired.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
