Who is Blake Gideon? All we know about Longhorns coach who moved to Georgia Tech as DC

With an exciting 2025 season coming up, the Texas Longhorns will have to push on without safeties coach Blake Gideon.

ESPN reported on Thursday that Gideon has signed on to be Georgia Tech's next defensive coordinator. This will be the first coordinator role of his coaching career. Before becoming a coach, Gideon played safety for Texas from 2008 to 2011. He ranks second all-time in consecutive starts for Texas at 52.

After going undrafted in 2012, Gideon signed on with the Arizona Cardinals. Although he completed training camp, he was cut in late August. The Denver Broncos then signed Gideon to their practice squad seven months later. In 2014, Gideon began his coaching career with Florida, signing on as a defensive quality control coach.

After serving as defensive backs and special teams coach for programs such as Georgia State, Houston and Ole Miss, Gideon landed with Texas as its safeties coach in 2021.

Gideon will replace Tyler Santucci, who spent only one season with Georgia Tech, signing on with the Baltimore Ravens to serve as their linebackers coach. Georgia Tech finished 67th in the nation in points allowed nationally last season. The Yellow Jackets (7-6) finished sixth in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Blake Gideon leaves Texas amid change at quarterback

Blake Gideon leaves Texas at an interesting time. While he'll get the opportunity to be a coordinator for the first time in his coaching career, Gideon will miss out as Arch Manning begins his career as the starting quarterback for the Longhorns.

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Many are expecting big things from the Longhorns with Manning taking the reins of the offense after Quinn Ewers has declared for the NFL draft. Some predict that the sophomore could provide the program with enough juice to propel them into the national championship game after failing to get past the semifinals of the College Football Playoff the past two years.

Should Texas finally take the next step next season, it will do so without Gideon on its coaching staff. As Gideon heads to Georgia Tech, he's hoping to help the team's defense get back on track, and, be a big part of getting the program back into the Top 25 national rankings after finishing unranked last season.