Inside The Huskies

Reports Have Grubb Interviewing in Alabama for OC Job

The Husky offensive mastermind has become a hot coaching property for college football.

Dan Raley

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Well before the Michigan State beatdown, the Oregon victory and the Alamo Bowl win over Texas, it was mentioned to Kalen DeBoer at practice one day how he might have trouble keeping his University of Washington coaching staff intact because all of the capable people he had assembled in one place.

The Husky coach readily if not warily agreed with that observation, even suggesting a possible yet surprising scenario in which one of his guys might become a head coach fairly soon.

On Monday, DeBoer now finds himself faced with the real possibility of losing offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb to Alabama, with the Husky mastermind in Tuscaloosa interviewing for the same role with Nick Saban, according to multiple reports. 

Grubb's professional reputation has skyrocketed over the past season while overseeing a UW offense that led the nation in passing yards per game (369.8), first downs (27.2), third-down conversions (56.83) and tackles for loss permitted (31).

His offensive energy helped totally revamp a Husky football program coming off a 4-8 downturn with serious offensive issues to an 11-2 team that no one could stop.

His UW players called him a genius, a wizard and one of college football's best-kept secrets.

The UW was even forced to offer Grubb a pair of contract extensions, bumping him to $2 million per year and making him the program's highest-paid assistant ever, as schools such as Texas A&M made a run at him near the end of the season.

While Alabama may or may not offer him the job, Grubb has a long professional connection with DeBoer to consider that goes back 15 years when deciding his next career move. They've coached together in Sioux Falls, Eastern Michigan, Fresno State and now at the UW, and he might not necessarily accept the job if offered.

Yet college football more and more is pushing aside traditions and loyalties without looking back, with teams jumping conferences and players trading teams without a second thought. 

An offensive coordinator, with a healthy salary increase and the promise of SEC prestige, leaving the Huskies for Alabama would not be out of the question.

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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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