Tashard Choice no longer headed to USC, but to Texas

USC never announced Choice’s hire, suggesting that he had yet to officially take the job, although he had updated his Twitter bio to reflect his new job. Choice reportedly removed those updates Saturday, prompting speculation that another change was afoot.

Choice has a connection to the state of Texas much more so than California. Coming out of Tech after the 2007 season, Choice played his first three NFL seasons for the Dallas Cowboys (2008-10).

After the end of his playing career, he was a volunteer coach at a high school in Texas, then got his first full-time coaching position with the Cowboys as an intern in 2016. That led to a job at North Texas as a quality-control assistant in 2017 before being promoted to running backs coach in 2018.

He was hired at Tech after that, where he had coached for the past three seasons, earning a nomination for the Broyles Award this season as the nation’s top assistant.

Like USC, Texas is among the most historically successful teams in college football, and, also like USC, one with a tradition of strong play at running back. He joins a Longhorns team that finished 5-7 in 2021. He’ll work with Bijan Robinson, who was named to the All-Big 12 first team this year after finishing second in the conference with 112.7 yards per game.

The Texas job opened up Wednesday when Longhorns running backs coach Stan Drayton became the new head coach at Temple.