Texas Football: Jeff Choate expected to take Nevada head coaching job

While it hasn’t impacted the Texas football program greatly in the last couple of years regarding attrition on the coaching staff, the coaching carousel has still affected plenty of coaching staffs of other major programs around the Power Five. That has changed, though, with a recent reported move by the Nevada Wolfpack to hire away Texas co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Jeff Choate.

Matt Zenitz of 247Sports reported on the night of Dec. 3 that Nevada is “expected to hire” Choate as its next head coach.

It was reported earlier in the day that Choate was Nevada’s top target to be its next head coach.

Nevada reportedly expected to hire Texas football co-DC/LB coach Jeff Choate as its next head coach

This news comes just a couple of days after Nevada fired its now former head coach, Ken Wilson. Wilson spent two seasons at Nevada, going a combined 4-20 and 2-14 in conference play. Nevada went 2-10 in each of Wilson’s two seasons as the head coach.

Choate spent the last three years as Texas’s co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach, alongside fellow co-DC Pete Kwiatkowski and under head coach Steve Sarkisian. He helped Texas’s defense improve year-over-year to go from the No. 33 ranked unit in the FBS in DFEI adjusted efficiency in 2021 to No. 6 in 2022 and No. 7 this season.

Choate has also done great work on the recruiting trail for the Longhorns on defense in the last couple of cycles. He helped to recruit the No. 1 linebacker recruit in the nation in the 2023 class in the 247Sports Composite, Denton (TX) Ryan five-star Anthony Hill Jr., to Texas.

And Choate has recruited multiple other highly rated blue-chip linebackers and edge players to Texas in the last couple of classes.

Before taking the co-DC/LB coach job at Texas under Sarkisian in 2021, Choate was the head coach of the FCS Montana State Bobcats from 2016 to 2020. He helped Montana State become one of the top FCS programs in the nation by his fourth year with the Bobcats, winning 11 games and finishing fourth in the FCS coaches poll in 2019.

Choate has also served as a coordinator and assistant coach with the Washington Huskies, Florida Gators, UTEP Miners, Boise State Broncos, and Washington State Cougars in the last two decades as a college football coach.

Choate and Texas won the Big 12 title and made the CFP in his third year on staff

This Texas staff has taken this program back to national prominence this season, leading this team to double-digit wins and a Big 12 title for the first time since 2009. No. 3 Texas was also selected to be in the College Football Playoff to face the No. 2 Washington Huskies in the semifinal at the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.