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Oklahoma Assistant Coach Takes Western Kentucky Job

Brent Venables said wanted to keep L'Damian Washington around in an enhanced role, but he instead chose to take a full-time coaching job elsewhere.

John E. Hoover

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Despite Brent Venables’ best efforts, Oklahoma is looking for another assistant coach.

L’Damian Washington, who stepped up and filled in as interim wide receivers coach in 2022 after Cale Gundy was forced to resign, has taken the full-time job coaching wide receivers at Western Kentucky.

Venables said in a statement Tuesday — after he hired Emmett Jones coach coach OU receivers — that he was “fighting like heck” to keep Washington around in an enhanced role on the staff.

Washington joined the staff last year as an assistant receivers coach, meaning he had a limited role in practice and recruiting and couldn’t be on the field on game days. He was technically an offensive analyst before taking over the interim job as Gundy’s replacement.

When Venables announced Jones’ hiring, that opened the door for Washington to take a full-time gig elsewhere.

Washington posted via Twitter Wednesday afternoon that choosing to leave was “one of the TOUGHEST decisions of my life.”

News of Washington’s impending departure was broken soon after by On3 college football insider Matt Zenitz.

OU will likely immediately begin the process of filling Washington’s support role. Analyst coaching roles have become somewhat transient as college football staffs have expanded in recent years. Another offensive analyst, former Sooner Jon Cooper, took a full-time coaching gig recently at North Texas.

Washington joined the Sooners last January after coaching receivers at Southern University in 2021. He was director of player development at Missouri, his alma mater, in 2020, and was a middle school head coach in Columbia in 2019-20. He played four seasons and was a team captain at Mizzou before several stops in professional football, from the Dallas Cowboys to the XFL. 

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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