Nansen

[No13Seed Jim]

I wonder if Johnny Nansen will be UT LB coach after one season with Muschamp. Do their styles mesh?

[Migas & Fajitas]

[WG Carter]

He coaches with a lot of passion

[General Grant]

@Jonesyfam7is a yuge fan

[jbseamus83]

I know that LB recruiting this cycle has not been great but I feel like there's a lot of recency bias with this. We brought in the top rated LB in the nation last year along with a high 4* and another LB that is getting rave reviews. He also helped bring in one of the top LB from the portal. I think we need to hit the pause button a bit on the panic happening right now due solely to 1 cycle of HS recruiting.

[NothinButDaHorns34]

3 minutes ago, jbseamus83 said:

I know that LB recruiting this cycle has not been great but I feel like there's a lot of recency bias with this. We brought in the top rated LB in the nation last year along with a high 4* and another LB that is getting rave reviews. He also helped bring in one of the top LB from the portal. I think we need to hit the pause button a bit on the panic happening right now due solely to 1 cycle of HS recruiting.

This boards full low football IQ “what have you done for me lately” types. Glad NOBODY on here is apart of the hiring/firing process for coaches here. 

[MBHORNSFAN]

39 minutes ago, NothinButDaHorns34 said:

This boards full low football IQ “what have you done for me lately” types. Glad NOBODY on here is apart of the hiring/firing process for coaches here. 

 

I remember when I saw post like this about PK.  And then Sark popped him.  I would not be surprised if Sark popped Nansen after the season. 

Edited 14 hours ago by MBHORNSFAN

[Jonesyfam7]

1 hour ago, General Grant said:

@Jonesyfam7is a yuge fan

He’s so good….best coach on staff.

[Alex Butler]

12 minutes ago, Jonesyfam7 said:

He’s so good….best coach on staff.

Behind Flood of course. #fireflood 

[Jeff Howe]

Schematically, Nansen should mesh better with Muschamp than he did with PK. More man coverage, more aggressive in general is Nansen’s style. I was hoping Nansen’s arrival would help PK evolve, but it didn’t happen.

[Here for the Wins]

18 minutes ago, Jeff Howe said:

Schematically, Nansen should mesh better with Muschamp than he did with PK. More man coverage, more aggressive in general is Nansen’s style. I was hoping Nansen’s arrival would help PK evolve, but it didn’t happen.

Where does one find good data on blitz rate and man coverage?

What I had seen shows our personnel typically ran man 5-10 percent more in 2025 than 2024.  Yet probably not many dudes would choose 25 over 24.

What percentage of man coverage would you like to see?

[No13Seed Jim]

1 hour ago, jbseamus83 said:

I know that LB recruiting this cycle has not been great but I feel like there's a lot of recency bias with this. We brought in the top rated LB in the nation last year along with a high 4* and another LB that is getting rave reviews. He also helped bring in one of the top LB from the portal. I think we need to hit the pause button a bit on the panic happening right now due solely to 1 cycle of HS recruiting.

 I'm not panicked over LB recruiting. My question is more operational - how Nansen and Muschamp work together. 

[Califashorn75]

Sark makes the decisions at that level. 

[GoHorns1]

Nansen and Muschamp love the press man, aggressive, attacking D. Go check out Nansen defenses at Arizona when he was DC.

[Jeff Howe]

2 hours ago, Here for the Wins said:

Where does one find good data on blitz rate and man coverage?

What I had seen shows our personnel typically ran man 5-10 percent more in 2025 than 2024.  Yet probably not many dudes would choose 25 over 24.

What percentage of man coverage would you like to see?

I can ask Rod because he has most of the data. It's not so much that man coverage or lack thereof is my issue. I didn't like how, against Florida and Georgia, for example, those quarterbacks were given way too many advantage throws on critical downs where the front/pressure and the coverage didn't mesh. 

[Assistant Regional Manager]

Nobody forced Muschamp to retain him for this season. 

[Here for the Wins]

44 minutes ago, Jeff Howe said:

I can ask Rod because he has most of the data. It's not so much that man coverage or lack thereof is my issue. I didn't like how, against Florida and Georgia, for example, those quarterbacks were given way too many advantage throws on critical downs where the front/pressure and the coverage didn't mesh. 

I’d be interested to know.  I like the numbers.  UF had quite a few interesting elements.  V Brown had his longest run and longest catch of the season.  The run was his only carry of the season, believe it was on 3rd too.  D. Wilson threw Black down on one TD, maybe press coverage.  The other may have been because of their run game success and we brought McDonald to the box.  Since that was D Wilson’sfirst game, it was difficult to know how they’d use him.  I don’t recall the exact specifics, but Lagway didn’t take long to get rid of the ball amongst the quickest all year.  I put that partly attributable to being overly aggressive.

 

 

[watty7796]

Nansen is high IQ type that is creative.  If anything I think Muschamps style will enhance what Nansen does thus making it significantly easier moving forward to recruit both hs and portal players.  I also beleive Nansens style will allow Muschamp to move more pieces around the board to create more havoc not just at the LB position but also on the D line and by extention the 2ndary.

[harveycmd]

I don't understand this Nansen talk. The first year of Nansen/PK worked incredibly well (2024). The Longhorns had one of the best defenses in the their history and the best in the nation along with Ohio State. We heard all season long how Nansen had married the back and front of the defense, which PK had trouble doing on his own. 

Enter Akina in 2025 and the back end of the defense went south really fast: poor communication, blown coverages and general dysfunction in the secondary. 

[AusMOJO]

Nansen seems like a good dude, solid LB coach and recruiter. Has DC experience. I know the question wasn't about recruiting (even though people went that route) but as Jeff pointed out he seems to mesh more with what Muschamp wants to do than what PK wanted to do. Wonder if Sark was telling PK he wanted to be more aggressive and it just never sunk in or what? 

I love PK and I think he was great at Texas. But it was clear he lacked aggressiveness and teams would just dink and dunk on us. I go back to that 2022 Tech game where Donovan Smith (who is not a good QB and had very little experience at the time) basically dinked and dunked Tech to victory. He ironically did the same thing in 2023 at Houston against us, too.

Cutter Boley was the same with Kentucky. His refusal to command the whole D was also pretty weird but anyway, back to Nansen. 

If Muschamp doesn't feel he fits with what he wants to do defensively, I'm assuming he'll bring it up with Sark after the season and they'll assess from there. Otherwise let's see how they work together this year. Lots of good LB talent around both from the portal and HS ranks. 

[AusMOJO]

2 hours ago, harveycmd said:

I don't understand this Nansen talk. The first year of Nansen/PK worked incredibly well (2024). The Longhorns had one of the best defenses in the their history and the best in the nation along with Ohio State. We heard all season long how Nansen had married the back and front of the defense, which PK had trouble doing on his own. 

Enter Akina in 2025 and the back end of the defense went south really fast: poor communication, blown coverages and general dysfunction in the secondary. 

This is true, they got on board really well in '24. Nansen seem to bring some ideas to PK and PK did listen. Seemed like t hings got disjointed in '25 for whatever reason. 

[Here for the Wins]

3 hours ago, AusMOJO said:

This is true, they got on board really well in '24. Nansen seem to bring some ideas to PK and PK did listen. Seemed like t hings got disjointed in '25 for whatever reason. 

Akina was an odd choice.  I was not here so no idea if there was discussion regarding the whys of bringing him back.  I thought he and Nansen were familiar with each other and was likely a positive in bringing Akina back.

For much of 2024, the schedule had offensive incompetence on the opposite sideline.  There’s a reason Clemson, ASU and OSU had some success.  We also were relatively healthy in 2024.  Good health, simplistic offenses, limited offenses generally make for easier defense.

UTSA, Colo State, ULM were all in the 100s in OFEI.  Michigan was 61.  OU was 80.  Florida was 49, but that was built on Lagway.  The Ivy League transfer likely has them worse.  Kentucky was 73.  Mississippi State was 31, but they did have a backup QB making his first start.  Georgia was 13 so that was for a decent offense. Vandy was 27, Arkansas 48. A&M 29th. So those first 5 P5 teams were either unsettled at QB or had injured QBs when we played.

in 2025, the non-P5s were in the 100s.  Vandy 1st.  Ohio State 8th.  Georgia 9th.  a&M 15th.  Arkansas 16th.  MSU 42nd.  OU 54th.  UF 61st.  Kentucky 84th.  So the P4 teams that got worse in OFEI were home games in 2024 and road games in 2025.  Two of those were also the 3rd and 4th games in a row away from home.  Also two of the 3 started backup QBs in 2024.

[PaulieD]

14 hours ago, NothinButDaHorns34 said:

This boards full low football IQ “what have you done for me lately” types. Glad NOBODY on here is apart of the hiring/firing process for coaches here. 

If you think this board is bad, @MBHORNSFAN , @General Grant and I can show you a real train wreck of a board 😉

Edited 32 minutes ago by PaulieD

[BornOrange]

10 hours ago, Here for the Wins said:

I’d be interested to know.  I like the numbers.  UF had quite a few interesting elements.  V Brown had his longest run and longest catch of the season.  The run was his only carry of the season, believe it was on 3rd too.  D. Wilson threw Black down on one TD, maybe press coverage.  The other may have been because of their run game success and we brought McDonald to the box.  Since that was D Wilson’sfirst game, it was difficult to know how they’d use him.  I don’t recall the exact specifics, but Lagway didn’t take long to get rid of the ball amongst the quickest all year.  I put that partly attributable to being overly aggressive.

 

 

You think we were overly aggressive against Florida?

[Aspann85]

12 hours ago, Califashorn75 said:

Sark makes the decisions at that level. 

I’m not so sure about that since he said Muschamp is the head coach of the defense when he got here. I think Sark wants to be as hands off on the defense as possible so he can get the offense to the levels he had at Bama.