Austin, TX -- (Sports Network) - The University of Texas has agreed to a contract extension with defensive coordinator Will Muschamp that will eventually lead to his succeeding Mack Brown as head coach of the Longhorns, athletic director DeLoss Dodds announced Tuesday.

The only detail of the contract to be finalized is a raise of Muschamp's salary to $900,000 on January 1, 2009.

"This is a plan that has been enthusiastically agreed to by Mack Brown, President Powers and the Board of Regents," Dodds said. "With the landscape in college football and all of the changes around the country, I've been looking at this for the last couple of years. When it's not working, you have to go outside and make changes. Things are going well here, it's working, so it's best to be prepared to build from inside and that's what we're doing."

Muschamp, in his first year with Texas, has the Longhorns ranked first in the Big 12 Conference in rushing and scoring defense. The 37-year-old was defensive coordinator for LSU during its national championship run in 2004.

"This is first and foremost about keeping Will at Texas," the 57-year-old Brown said. "He's had several opportunities to interview for head coaching jobs, but we wanted him to stay here. I'm going to continue coaching as I'm enjoying it. I have eight years left on my contract, I am not thinking at all about moving on, it's simply that I think Will is a great young coach, a perfect fit for this place and he wants to stay. Nothing will change in our structure."

Muschamp also had a successful stint as defensive coordinator at Auburn (2006-07) after serving as an assistant head coach with the NFL's Miami Dolphins (2005).

"I was really excited when they presented the opportunity to me," Muschamp said. "I'm not in any hurry to be a head coach and hope Coach Brown's around for many more years. I'm just glad I'm going to be able to stay at Texas. This is the top program in the country, my family loves it here and there's no better person to watch and learn from about running a football program than Coach Brown."