Texas Longhorns hire former SEC head coach as special assistant

Mark Stoops will not be out of the SEC for long. 

Just a few months after he was fired by the Kentucky Wildcats, the long-time head coach has landed on his feet within the conference.

To be fair, he's taking a massive step back. We've seen "image rehab" stints like this work out before, though, so it will be interesting to see what Stoops can get out of his new gig with the Texas Longhorns.

According to Chip Brown of Horns247, head coach Steve Sarkisian is hiring Stoops as a special assistant.

"Mark Stoops has been hired in a similar special assistant role that Paul Chryst and Gary Patterson were hired in by Texas," a source told Brown.

Chryst, the former head coach at Pitt and Wisconsin, was a special advisor to Sarkisian in 2023. A year before that, Gary Patterson, the long-time head coach of the TCU Horned Frogs, held the same role.

Notably, Chryst hasn't done anything since that 2023 season, while Patterson is now the defensive coordinator for the USC Trojans.