Inside The Huskies

Former UW Assistant Coaches Turn Up in SEC

Donte Williams and Will Harris have been new hires at Georgia and Florida.

Dan Raley

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While former SEC players lately have been turning to the University of Washington football program in bunches, former Husky assistant coaches have been heading in the opposite direction.

Over the weekend, Donte Williams, once a graduate assistant for Steve Sarkisian's UW staff, revealed he has been hired by Georgia as a defensive-backs coach.

This development comes the same week Will Harris, who coached for Chris Petersen and Jimmy Lake in Montlake, emerged at Florida, likewise as a DB coach.

For Williams, who coached at USC for the past four seasons, change was inevitable.

He answered to Trojans defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, who was abruptly fired following a 52-42 home loss to the UW, and an overhaul of the defensive staff was a certainty.

A Los Angeles native, Williams spent two seasons at the UW with Sarkisian in 2011 and 2012 before San Jose State gave him his first full-time position and he took subsequent defensive-back jobs at Arizona, Nebraska, Oregon and USC.

He had been a loyal soldier for the Trojans, taking over as interim coach in 2021 once Clay Helton was fired during the season. 

Lincoln Riley retained Williams on his staff when he took over the following season.

Harris, a former USC safety for Pete Carroll, coached at the UW in 2018-2021, leaving when Jimmy Lake's staff was fired.

Joining Helton's new staff, Harris worked as the Georgia Southern defensive coordinator for a season before spending this past fall as a quality assistant for the Los Angeles Chargers.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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