Schaefer was named the Bulldogs’ head coach on March 13, 2012, replacing Sharon Fanning-Otis who retired at the end of the 2012 season.

That victory snapped the Huskies’ record 111-game win streak and sent the Bulldogs to the national championship game in their first Final Four appearance.

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended the 2019–20 season, Schaefer left Mississippi State to fill the head coaching vacancy at Texas.

[4] The timing of the move was unfortunate, as it came shortly after he and his wife had completed a new house on an 80-acre (32 ha) farm near the Bulldogs' home of Starkville.

I will be 65 miles from where I spent weekends at my grandmother's house, and where my mother and father are buried, in La Grange, Texas.