Texas Football: 4 early candidates for Horns to replace co-DC Jeff Choate
Coleman Hutzler, Alabama S/T coordinator/OLB coach
If Texas hired a re-tread to replace Choate on the defensive staff, one of the best options would be the Alabama Crimson Tide second-year outside linebackers coach/special teams coordinator Coleman Hutzler. He is a familiar face on the Forty Acres after spending one season as Texas’s co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 2020 under former head coach Tom Herman.
Since he left Texas following the conclusion of the 2020 season when the Longhorns replaced Herman and his staff with Sarkisian early in the 2021 offseason, he’s held two positions with the Ole Miss Rebels and Alabama.
In 2021, Hutzler was Ole Miss’s special teams coordinator under head coach Lane Kiffin. He coached up one of the top-ranked special teams units in the SEC during the 2021 season, which ranked in the top three in the conference in net yards per punt and yards per punt return.
After one season at Ole Miss, head coach Nick Saban hired Hutzler to be the special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach at Alabama. The Tide has ranked in the top three in the SEC in field goal percentage, net yards per punt, and yards per kick return in each of Hutzler’s two seasons coaching the special teams in Tuscaloosa.
He’s also coached up one of the best linebacker units in the Power Five at Alabama in the last two seasons. Alabama has boasted multiple All-American and All-SEC First-Team selections at linebacker in the last two seasons, including top-five NFL Draft pick Will Anderson Jr., Dallas Turner, and Chris Braswell.
In the last decade, Hutzler has also been on staff with the South Carolina Gamecocks as the special teams coordinator from 2016-2019 and special teams coordinator with the Florida Gators from 2013-2014. He won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach while he was the S/T coordinator at South Carolina in 2017.
Hutzler has plenty of experience coaching in the SEC. He’s got nearly a decade of coaching experience in the SEC between his time at Alabama, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Florida.
Upon Texas’s transition to the SEC in 2024, it would theoretically make a lot of sense to consider a coaching hire such as Hutzler that has already been at Texas and coached for nearly a decade in that conference.