(Photo credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images)

Will Muschamp is back as Texas' defensive coordinator 15 years later as head coach Steve Sarkisian shook up his staff on Thursday.

The Longhorns fired Pete Kwiatkowski, who was the defensive coordinator the past five years, and defensive passing game coordinator Duane Akina, who was in his first year in that role.

Muschamp oversaw the Texas defense from 2008-10 before spending the next four years as Florida's head coach. He was South Carolina's head coach from 2016-20 and part of Georgia's staff for the last five years.

Sarkisian said in a statement, 'We appreciate all that Pete Kwiatkowski has done for the program in his five years coordinating our defense and are grateful for Duane Akina's efforts in returning to the program this past year. ...

'But at this time, we just felt it was best for our program to move in a different direction, and having the opportunity to hire Will Muschamp provides us the leadership to take our defense to another level. Will is a guy I've known for a long time, always admired and is as good of a defensive mind and coach as I've ever coached against. His defenses are relentless; he absolutely gets the best out of his staff and players and is such an extremely well-respected coach.'

Muschamp added in a statement, 'This is an exciting day for the Muschamp family. We loved our time in Austin and truly enjoyed everything about working with Texas Football. We're thrilled to be coming back to a program with one of the richest and proudest histories and traditions in college football.'

In 8 1/2 seasons as a head coach, Muschamp compiled a 56-51 record, leading his teams to six bowl games. In his last year in charge of the Longhorns' defense, Texas wound up sixth in the country in total defense (300.2 yards per game), a year after the team played in the BCS national championship game.

Kwiatkowski's defense this season finished 23rd in the nation in opponents' scoring (19.8 points per game) and 36th in total yards allowed (335.7 per game).

--Field Level Media