Another Texas Longhorns Assistant Coach Leaves Program

According to Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle, Texas offense assistant/passing game specialist John Dozier Dean is expected to be announced as a member of the staff at North Texas. He will join as a full-time assistant coach and is expected to coach the team's slot wide receivers.

Dean reportedly joined Sarkisian's staff as a student assistant at Alabama. When Sarkisian took the job in Austin, Texas, he brought over just four staffers with him: three full-time assistants and Dean.

The Mean Green recently hired Neal Brown as its head coach after Eric Morris took the head coach job with the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Brown spent the 2025 season as the special assistant to the head coach at Texas. He had previously coached at Troy and West Virginia.

Brown is adding Dean to his staff, an assistant who was previously included in On3's list of rising support staff in 2022. Dean will join another Texas staff member at UNT, director of scouting Errin Joe.

While Dean's exact role with Texas' coaching staff is not entirely clear, he seemingly left an impression on Brown during his year with the Longhorns. Dean coached several talented slot receivers while at UT, including DeAndre Moore Jr. and Jordan Whittington, a sixth-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

However, UNT's top pass-catchers in the slot — Wyatt Young and Miles Coleman — both left for OSU, following Morris to Stillwater, Okla. The Mean Green's potential slot receivers in 2026 could be a combination of former Houston wideout Dalton Carnes and former Western Carolina standout James Tyre, who recorded 832 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2025.

"You want to hire the right people. All right? And it needs to be in a timely manner, but you don't want to go too fast," Brown said during his introductory press conference with the Mean Green. "You got to really get to know them. You got to get the right fits. And when you put together a coaching staff, it's kind of like putting together a puzzle."

Despite winning 12 games and nearly making the College Football Playoff, North Texas is rebuilding and retooling in many ways. Both the staff and roster were decimated by the transfer portal; Brown is trying to find the right people to carry on the momentum the program has had in recent seasons.