UW Coach Comparison: Paopao Knows His Way Around Montlake

The tight-ends coach has been hired by three Husky coaches, dismissed by a fourth.

In the 2017 Fiesta Bowl, UW tight-ends coach Jordan Paopao works the sideline against Penn State. / Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

From a well-known football family -- who could forget the last name? -- Jordan Paopao joined the University of Washington football program as a graduate assistant coach, hired by Steve Sarkisian in 2011.

Two years later, Sarkisian promoted Paopao to full-time tight-ends coach for the head coach's last season in Seattle before leaving for USC.

In 2014, Chris Petersen brought in an all-new staff to replace Sarkisian and everyone else with the exception of one assistant coach -- he retained Paopao.

It almost seemed as if the tight-ends leader would stay in Montlake forever now that two prominent Husky coaches had helped him launch his coaching career.

Yet Paopao (pronounced pow pow) unceremoniously was let go in 2019 after his fellow assistant coachJimmy Lake was elevated to replace a retiring Petersen and he kept everyone except Husky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan and Paopao. This was a surprise, a shock, a blow to the tight-end coach's ego, coming all at once.

"I think it was hard personally," Paopao said this week. He mentioned how he had to uproot his family to find another job, made difficult by the fact his wife Kristin had grown up and lived only in the Seattle area.

In looking at Jedd Fisch's 10 assistant coaches now on the payroll, we finish up with Paopao who oversees the tight ends, replaced Nick Sheridan from Kalen DeBoer's staff and returned for a second UW coaching stint.

"Coaching kind of takes you on weird turns," Paopao said. "Until you get to run a program the way you want, you often times don't get to decide one way or the other what happens."

Paopao, 38, comes from a coaching family. He's the son of Tony Paopao, a high school coach for more than three decades after he was a running back who played briefly for the Seattle Seahawks and in the USFL. He's the nephew of Joe Paopao, a CFL quarterback for nearly a dozen seasons and an offensive coordinator and assistant coach in the league for nearly three decades.

What was head-scratching about Paopao's UW ouster is Lake hired Derham Cato, a four-year Husky offensive analyst, to replace him.

In 2018, UW tight-ends coachJordan Paopao talks to his players during a game against North Dakota. / Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports

Paopao had coached a slew of high-level UW tight ends in Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Will Dissly, Drew Sample, Hunter Bryant and Cade Otton. Meantime, Kato, now an offensive analyst at Missouri, had worked in the shadows.

In comparing him to his predecessor, Paopao is coaching in his 12th season as a full-time coach with stops at Arizona and UNLV after leaving the Huskies. Sheridan, 36, who left with DeBoer for Alabama and became the Crimson Tide offensive coordinator, is in his 10th year of full-time coaching having previously worked for the UW, Indiana, South Florida and Western Kentucky.

These coaches appear fairly similar in experience and in producing high-level players, with Sheridan coaching the Huskies' NFL-bound Devin Culp and Jack Westover the past two seasons, though those tight ends originally began their playing careers by answering to Paopao.

What might separate Paopao from others is he's now working for his third Husky head coach and people think highly enough of him that's he back in town for a second stint after getting let go. Everything seems to have worked out well for him.

"To me, it was a surprise for sure," Paopao said. "But ultimately it was a chance for me to grow and figure out who I am."

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