Pete Kwiatkowski Hired From Washington as Texas’ Defensive Coordinator
The Texas Longhorns new staff is continuing to round out and according to multiple reports, Pete Kwiatkowski is leaving the Washington Huskies to join Steve Sarkisian’s staff in Austin.
The hire comes after the search included candidates such as Will Muschamp, who turned down the job, Barry Odom, Pete Golding, were all connected to the opening.
Kwiatkowski will replace Chris Ash, who left before getting shown the door by Sarkisian, and joined Urban Meyer’s staff with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Also important to note, according to The Dallas Morning News, Kwiatkowski made $1 million last year and could become the highest-paid defensive coach in the nation.
Kwiatkowski has been the defensive coordinator at Washington for seven seasons working for both Chris Petersen and Jimmy Lake. Kwiatkowski has produced some of the best defenses in the Pac-12 for several years. Over his seven seasons in charge of the defense, Washington’s defense has only given up more than 20.0 points per game twice. His 2017 defense was the best, statistically, allowing 16.1 points per game.
For those of you more into advanced statistics, in his 11 seasons as a defensive coordinator, Pete Kwiatkowski’s defenses ranked inside the top 25 of FEI or S&P+ 10 times.
It’s long been believed that Kwiatkowski could be like Brent Venables at Clemson, a top-notch coordinator who was happy where he was and would be very difficult to pry away from the program he enjoyed coaching at. But the Texas Longhorns have done just that, scoring another big win for the coaching staff.
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