What Texas football is getting in new WR coach Chris Jackson

Texas football was able to find its new wide receivers coach to replace Brennan Marion on Jan. 24. Multiple reports have indicated that the first-year Jacksonville Jaguars wide receivers coach Chris Jackson is being hired for the same role at Texas. Jackson will be taking his talents to the collegiate level after spending a few years as a coach/staffer in the NFL.

Jackson is the third wide receivers coach under head coach Steve Sarkisian since he started with the Longhorns early in the 2021 offseason. Sark’s first actual hire at wide receivers coach was Marion, who was brought on board with the title of WR coach/pass game coordinator last offseason.

But Marion left to take the offensive coordinator job under new head coach Barry Odom with the UNLV Rebels earlier this month.

Throughout the last week or so, it felt like Jackson was the favorite to be the next Texas wide receivers coach. And that wound up coming to fruition after the Jags’ playoff run came to an end last weekend upon a 27-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes in the AFC Divisional Round.

It was initially reported by Mia O’Brien of 1010 XL/92.5 FM on Twitter on the afternoon of Jan. 24 that Jackson will be taking the wide receivers coach job at Texas.

Background of new Texas football wide receivers coach Chris Jackson

The 47-year-old Jackson is a native of Bristol, PA, and attended Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, CA.

Jackson was in his first year as a full-fledge positional coach in the NFL in 2022. He was a part of head coach Doug Pederson’s staff with the Jags, where he helped that wide receiver room beat preseason expectations.

The most notable of that group of Jags’ wideouts that Jackson coached up in 2022 was Christian Kirk. During the 2022 campaign, Kirk went off for his first 1,000 receiving-yard season and a career-high eight touchdowns.

It looks like Jackson had a positive impact on Kirk from the get-go during their first year together in Jacksonville.

In a preseason interview back in August 2022, Kirk talked about the impact that Jackson had on him and his game briefly.

"He’s [Coach Jackson] been great. Just his knowledge of the game, you know, he’s been around the league and different guys in the league for a while now. He’s great at just getting us mentally prepared to practice every single day and just send the culture for us in our room. And you know he realizes the type of guys we have in our room and how good we can be. So he’s always pushing us and holding us to our standard."

It’s interesting to hear what Jackson had to say on the Jags bringing in Kirk via free agency last offseason.

"“I think, you know, bringing somebody on that could play multiple positions, that’s a true pro and that is gonna work his butt off, it was a no brainer for somebody like him.”"

You can tell from what both Kirk and Jackson had to say on their time together in Jacksonville that this was a good fit in terms of the coach-player relationship. It also shows the “standard” to which Jackson held his wideouts in Jacksonville in the season that was for the Jags.

However, Kirk wasn’t the only Jags’ wideout that Jackson seemingly had a positive impact on during the 2022 campaign. Zay Jones also had a career year with the Jags in 2022, going off for a career-high 823 receiving yards and five touchdown catches.

Both Kirk and Jones were in their first seasons in Jacksonville. So, it looked like a good fit for them with Jackson, who was also in his first year on the job with the Jags.

Prior to taking the wide receivers coach job in Jacksonville ahead of the 2022 season, Jackson spent two years as an assistant wide receivers coach with the Chicago Bears under former head coach Matt Nagy.

Nagy and Jackson played together in the Arena Football League with the Georgia Force in the mid-2000s. And according to a piece from Adam Hoge of NBC Sports in 2021, Nagy spent multiple years courting Jackson to be a coach in the NFL, as he thought it would be a good fit for the former NFL and AFL wide receiver.

And that wound up coming to fruition in 2018 when Jackson was brought onto Nagy’s staff as an intern. He then rose up the ranks through the next few years, becoming a defensive assistant in 2019 and then the assistant wide receivers coach in 2020 and 2021.

But Jackson would ultimately be let go from the Bears staff entering the 2022 offseason as Nagy was fired after four seasons as the head coach in Chicago.

Jackson’s playing days in collegiate and professional football

Jackson was also a standout wide receiver for the Washington State Cougars in the late 1990s. He landed at Wazzu after his time at Orange Coast College in the mid-1990s. Jackson reportedly averaged more than 21 yards per catch in the midst of his first round of playing organized football at OCC.

During his time at Wazzu, Jackson emerged as a top target of former standout quarterback Ryan Leaf. He had a breakout final season at Wazzu in 1997, where he registered more than 1,000 receiving yards and 11 touchdown catches as the Cougars made a run to the Rose Bowl before eventually falling short to the National Champion and No. 1 ranked Michigan Wolverines by just five points.

Despite having a big final season at Wazzu, Jackson was ultimately picked up as an undrafted free agent by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But he didn’t see the field for live-game reps in the NFL until the 2000 season with the Tennessee Titans.

He also got a handful of live game reps during the 2002 and 2003 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, which would be his last in the NFL.

Jackson also had a good run in the AFL in the 2000s. He was a two-time AFL Offensive Player of the Year and a three-time AFL First-Team All-Pro. He even won the AFL Rookie of the Year honors in 2000 with the Los Angeles Avengers.

His professional career came to an end for good in 2014 when he made a comeback run in his late 30s with the Arizona Rattlers.

What Jackson can bring to Texas

I’ve mentioned a good bit already that Jackson is someone that overachieved in his first season at Jacksonville. He was also a fast riser during his limited time as an assistant coach in the NFL with the Bears and Jaguars.

Given that Sark was primarily looking for a wide receivers coach that could get the most out of this position group while having someone that is demanding yet respected enough to have a good grasp on all the personalities in the mix, this looks like a good fit. Jackson was able to get the most out of a group of wideouts that were largely new to the Jags in 2022.

If he’s able to bring that same type of presence to the wide receiver room on the Forty Acres, Jackson should be just fine in his new role at Texas.

It’s worth noting that a piece from Inside Texas on Jan. 24 mentions that Jackson is a former high-level private wide receiver trainer. Thus, he checks the boxes for the technical and teaching parts of the job.

Jackson will also command a certain degree of respect from this wide receiver room right away given the fact that he played in and coached in the NFL in the last two decades or so.

Yet, where Jackson will be challenged the most right away is his ability on the recruiting trail. Since Jackson is completely inexperienced as a college coach, he’ll need to get to work right away to get up to speed with Texas’ wideout priorities on the recruiting trail.

There are some noted connections that Jackson has that will help in terms of building relationships in the recruiting game, though.

It is also well documented at this point that Jackson has a longstanding connection with well-known private wide receivers coach Margin Hooks. Jackson and Hooks were even teammates for a bit of time together in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins in the mid-2000s.

Jackson is also a well-connected former player and coach at the NFL level from his two-and-a-half decades of playing and coaching professional football.

All in all, I think this is a good coaching hire for the Longhorns. Jackson seemed to be the guy that Sark and the Longhorns wanted for the last 10 days or so. And he checks a lot of the boxes that Sark was looking for in this wide receivers coach hire.

This now makes it two big hires to the staff for the Longhorns in the last couple of days. Sark has hired Jackson to be the next wide receivers coach while former LBJ head coach replaced the recently-departed Chris Gilbert as the director of high school relations on Jan. 23.