Huskies Announce Football Staff Additions
If the Washington football team fails to improve on last season’s 6-7 record, it won’t be due to a lack of football staff.
Huskies head coach Jedd Fisch spoke with the media on Wednesday to officially announce additions to his staff. The NCAA removed its limitation on the number of coaches that can work with players on the field. This had led to — among other things — two special teams coaches and an assistant quarterback coach as part Fisch’s increased staff. The number of coaches allowed to recruit off campus remains limited to 11.
From the plushly remodeled UW football team meeting room, Fisch spoke again of using an NFL model for his college football team, which led to the necessity of additional staff.
“We’ve talked a lot about that over the last five years that I’ve been a head coach,” said Fisch, who will begin his second season of UW spring practices on April 3. “We’ve always said we’ve prided ourselves on trying to create a 33rd NFL team mentality. We’ve tried to make sure that we’ve always created the best opportunity for our players to be able to be treated like NFL players.”
Fisch lost both his offensive and defensive coordinators to their dads after the 2024 season. Steve Belichick, the Huskies’ DC last season, took off to join Bill Belichick after he somewhat surprisingly accepted the head job at North Carolina. Last year’s offensive coordinator/offensive line coach, Brennan Carroll, joined Pete Carroll’s staff with the Las Vegas Raiders. Two other coaches — Vinnie Sunseri (safeties) and Robert Bala (linebackers) split so they could split the defensive coordinator position at Florida.
Fisch landed Ryan Walters as the new DC, and added former O’Dea High School star Taylor Mays to coach safeties. Brian Odom, who worked with Walters at Missouri, was added to coach linebackers.
Fisch said that the prior relationship and “the amount of elite recruits that coach Odom has brought to Oklahoma and USC in his time coaching linebackers at those programs” led to Odom’s hiring.
“We just felt like he would be a perfect fit for the development of our linebackers,” Fisch said.
Fisch promoted from within to fill Carroll’s former roles. Jimmy Dougherty moved from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator, while assistant OL coach Michael Switzer shed “assistant” from his job title.
“(It’s) a great thing to show our staff that we’re willing to promote from within,” Fisch said. “That if people leave, our goal is to continue to build our program up, and that’s what you’ll continue to see. We were able to promote Mike Switzer. So all those guys that Brennan (Carroll) was recruiting were also being recruited by Mike Switzer. … It’s his turn. I think the kids love to see that.”
UW also hired special teams coordinator Chris Petrilli and assistant special teams coordinator Greg Froelich, meaning last year’s special team coach, Jordan Paopao, will focus solely on coaching tight ends in 2025.
"We felt like we needed two people solely committed, two people who had coordinated before," Fisch said.
The Huskies also recently added former NFL first-round draft pick J.P. Losman to the new role of assistant quarterbacks coach. Also added in recent weeks were assistant defensive line coach Korey Rush and assistant offensive line coach Mike Brewster. Washington promoted Aaron Van Horn to outside linebackers coach, Dom Caldwell to assistant running backs coach, Caleb Wilson to assistant wide receivers coach and Kirkland Parker to assistant defensive backs coach.
As for who will hit the road for recruiting, Fisch said he anticipates that he, Dougherty and Walters will be responsible for coaxing in talent, along with position coaches Scottie Graham (running backs), Kevin Cummings (receivers), Jason Kaufusi (defensive line), John Richardson (secondary) Paopao, Switzer, Odom and Mays.
Off the field position additions include Matt Doherty as senior director of player personnel, which will have similarities to the role of general manager some schools are adding. Fisch wanted the distinction between the two titles to be that Doherty won’t be dealing with things like training and equipment.
"We're asking Matt Doherty to be fully focused on how to run a personnel department," Fisch said. "That's a full-time job, and I don't want to take Matt away from the day-to-day of that job to create some title that I don't believe we need right now."
Other additions include: Jacob Crawford, director of player personnel; Erik Hamburg, assistant director of player personnel; Marcus Griffin, director of recruiting; Jaleel Wadood, director of high school relations; Silas Clapham, director of college scouting.
"If we're trying to get to the (College Football Playoff), we've got to look at our competitors being Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Georgia, Alabama, programs like that," Fisch said. "If those guys are going to be our competitors, then we need to make sure we're matching them with effort and with personnel."
