Steve Sarkisian and his Texas Longhorns football program are getting stronger after adding former Arizona coach Johnny Nansen as the Longhorn’s new co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach. Nansen is bringing at least one stud player with him to Austin, too, in transfer portal defensive tackle Tiaoalii Savea.

“ANOTHER FROM THE PORTAL!” Inside Texas reported on X/Twitter. “Texas announced the signing of Arizona transfer DT Tiaoalii Savea on Tuesday!”

Savea is a 6-foot-5, 305-pound DT from the Las Vegas, Nevada area (Desert Pines High School). The junior played in 19 games for the Wildcats, making 36 tackles with 7.5 for a loss, 1.5 sacks, a fumble recovery, and a blocked kick. Before that, he played 10 games in his freshman season for UCLA, making seven tackles.

Johnny Nansen is the coach who recruited Tiaoalii Savea to UCLA, and when the then-defensive line coach moved to the Arizona football program to be defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach, the big DT followed.

This offseason, the college football coaching carousel spun fast, and after Nick Saban retired, Washington coach Kalen DeBoer moved to Alabama, and Arizona headman Jedd Fisch headed up to Seattle.

Instead of sticking around with former San Jose State coach Brent Brennan in Arizona, Nansen moved on to join Steve Sarkisian at Texas and, just like before, brought Savea with him.

This transfer portal move strengthens an already strong Texas defense, which allowed just 18.9 points per game last season, good enough for 15th-best in college football (FBS). With a strong D and quarterback Quinn Ewers coming back for another season, Texas has a return to the College Football Playoffs firmly in its sights.