Inside The Huskies

Huskies Add Former Special Forces Paratrooper to Coach Special Teams

Chris Petrilli is the third former Purdue coach to join Jedd Fisch's staff.

Dan Raley

Chris Petrill reportedly is the UW's new special-teams coach.
Chris Petrill reportedly is the UW's new special-teams coach. / Purdue

The University of Washington football team struggled way more than it should have with its special teams in 2024, giving up long returns, dealing with errant center snaps and watching field-goal attempts miss or bounce off the crossbar..

Apparently it's just a matter of getting everyone's attention to shore up these responsibilities.

From the looks of his impressive military service record and any number of his rather expressive Purdue photos, Chris Petrilli won't have any problems being heard as he joins the Huskies as their new special-teams coordinator after serving in the same role with the Boilermakers, the UW announced on Monday.

Watching on TV as the Twin Towers in New York were brought down by a 2001 terrorist attack, Petrilli joined the U.S. Army and became a member of the elite military special forces. He served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before receiving an honorable discharge after suffering an injury overseas that he still can't discuss with any detail.

He becomes the third former Purdue coach to fill out Jedd Fisch's staff, following defensive coordinator Ryan Walters -- the Boilermakers head coach for the past two seasons -- and defensive quality control coach Austin Karr, who served as a defensive graduate assistant for two seasons for Walters at the West Lafayette, Indiana, school.

Before becoming a paratrooper, Petrilli was a safety, wide receiver and special-teams player for Montana's John Carroll College. He was a professional boxer briefly before turning to the military.

Petrilli also spent six seasons through 2022 coaching the outside linebackers and special teams for North Texas. Before that, he worked in various football capacities at Charleston Southern, College of Idaho, Drake and Boise State. In 2015, he was in with Bryan Harsin's Broncos staff working as a defensive quality control and special-teams coach alongside future Husky assistant coaches in Scott Huff, Lee Marks, Junior Adams and Julius Brown.

With Petrilli taking over the UW special teams, Jordan Paopao will concentrate solely on coaching the the tight ends.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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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