Inside The Huskies

JaMarcus Shephard Would Provide WSU With a Laugh a Minute

Alums are pushing the narrative that the former UW and Cougars receivers coach could fill the job.

Dan Raley

JaMarcus Shephard always has been a fun guy to be around.
JaMarcus Shephard always has been a fun guy to be around. / UW

Whenever former Washington State football coach Jim Walden was on the other end of the Apple Cup, with his folksy, yarn-spinning ways, University of Washington coach Don James used to smile and say he "was a 2,000-word underdog."

Well, if some Cougars fans had their way, the difference in vocabulary between the schools could grow to 3,000 words or even more should fun-loving and fast-talking JaMarcus Shephard suddenly become a candidate to replace the man of few words when he left, Jake Dickert.

As WSU tries to get through the difficult period of having no football coach with a bowl game just over a week away, team followers have gotten extra creative by suggesting that Shephard -- both a former Cougars and Huskies receivers coach -- should be a viable candidate, though others maintain a current head coach is a more likely candidate, with maybe Brent Vigen of Montana State the top target.

As a man with no previous experience in the hot seat, Shephard might be a bit of a stretch. However, one thing is fairly certain: He would make his WSU coaching servitude great fun as long as he was in the Palouse.

Seattle got a first-hand look at this guy for the previous two seasons when he spent time with the Huskies on Kalen DeBoer's staff as the receivers coach before going with DeBoer to Alabama and becoming a co-offensive coordinator.

While in Montlake, Shephard always had something upbeat or funny say to the players, coaches, recruits and even media members. His voice could be heard above the din of the spring or fall practice commotion. He was known to run alongside his players in drills, either goading them or covering them, or both.

Eight years ago, Shephard spent a season at WSU, coaching the wide receivers for coach Mike Leach and an 8-5 football team that ended up in the Holiday Bowl and fell to Minnesota 17-12. This was a Cougars team that lost a Northwest trifecta, dropping games to CFP-bound Washington, Eastern Washington and Boise State.

Then it was off to Purdue to coach the next five seasons alongside Jeff Brohm, who's now at Louisville and will take his team up against the UW in the Sun Bowl on New Year's Eve.

One clearly needs a sense of humor to succeed at WSU -- see Walden and Leach -- and Shephard could fill that bill no end. He surely would be a persuasive recruiter. He probably wouldn't do too bad with X's and O's either.

Yet he previously was in Pullman for just that lone season, which might indicate that was more than enough for him.

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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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