Austin, Texas ? The blood smeared across Will Muschamp’s left cheek as it dripped from an inch-long cut near his ear.

Texas players looked at him and looked at each other, expecting him to wipe it off. Instead, the Longhorns’ new defensive coordinator kept barking orders about busted plays and what to do the next time they went on the field.

“That was crazy,” defensive tackle Roy Miller said. “I was looking at him like ‘Did he just come off the field?”‘

Texas needed a tough leader to boost a sagging defense and coach Mack Brown appears to have found just the guy in the 37-year-old Muschamp, who came from Auburn with a fiery reputation and bolstered it with his blood-smeared cheek in the first game of the season.

Brown lured Muschamp away from Auburn with a contract that pays him $425,000 a year, making him one of the highest-paid assistants in the country. The hire caused an immediate buzz among Texas fans who were awed by the YouTube clip of Muschamp spewing profanity and whooping it up with Auburn players after a big play.

He solidified his wild-man reputation early in the 52-10 win over Florida Atlantic. The game was still close in the first quarter when Muschamp, upset by a broken coverage by his young secondary, apparently ripped off his headset with such a violent motion that part of it ripped open his cheek.

“I was like ‘Coach, your face is bleeding.’ The man is fiery,” defensive end Brian Orakpo said as the Longhorns prepared for their next game today at Texas-El Paso. “He acted like it wasn’t even there, that’s the funny thing.”

Orakpo half expected Muschamp to start drinking his own blood.

“I thought he would have licked it or something … just wipe if off his hands and start eating it,” Orakpo said.

The bloodcurdling moment certainly got the point across. Texas responded by giving up just 53 yards of offense in the second half.

It’s not even the first time Muschamp has been bloodied on the sideline. Miller says he once grabbed a players’ facemask and headbutted him, even though Muschamp wasn’t wearing a helmet and got the worst of the contact.

It’s been a few years since the Longhorns have had that kind of defensive intensity.

Former assistants Greg Robinson and Dick Tomey brought it when they spent their only season with Texas in 2004.

Tomey was 66 when he was mixing it up – and getting knocked down – in tackling drills. Robinson, meanwhile, was bringing a firebrand style to the sideline where Oklahoma fans said he showered them with profanity.

Gene Chizik was the defensive rock behind the 2005 national championship but he may have had his eye on a head coaching job by 2006 when the unit slipped considerably over the last few games.

Chizik took the head coaching job at Iowa State after the 2006 season and Brown turned to his loyal assistant Duane Akina to run the defense last season. Akina is known as a whiz with defensive backs, but Texas had one of the worst pass defenses in the country in 2007 and fell to 5-3 in the Big 12.

Texas needed a boost on defense. The league is full of top-rate quarterbacks running high-powered offenses.

Another performance like last season and the Longhorns would have no chance to win Brown’s second Big 12 title.

So Brown latched on to Muschamp, who has been tutored by the ever-intense Nick Saban at LSU and with the Miami Dolphins. In five years at LSU and Auburn, Muschamp’s defenses all ranked in the top 10 in the nation.

Texas’ fourth defensive coordinator in five years arrived in January.

Asked about the “Band-Aid” award Miller said the Longhorns gave him in honor of his bloody cheek, Muschamp deadpanned, “It was fun.”