UW Once Let Paopao Go as TE Coach -- That Won't Happen Again Anytime Soon

The Husky assistant watches his reputation take off in second stint in Montlake.

Jordan PaoPao instructs tight end Quentin Moore during spring ball. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Three University of Washington football head-coaching changes ago, Jimmy Lake took over and retained all of Chris Petersen's staff except for offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan and tight-ends coach Jordan Paopao.

With the 2019 Husky offense struggling at times, Hamdan's departure was widely anticipated. Paopao's departure, however, was not.

Paopao, who turned 38 on Tuesday, had joined the UW staff as a graduate assistant coach way back in 2011 for Steve Sarkisian, become a full-time assistant in charge of tight ends again for Sarkisian two years later and stayed put when Petersen took over in 2014 and coached six years for him.

Yet Lake made a most curious move, one of many over his two seasons in charge, by replacing Paopao, then a six-year UW assistant coach overseeing several NFL-bound players, with the relatively inexperienced Derham Cato, a Husky offensive analyst who's now a Missouri analyst after leaving football briefly.

Paopao -- returning to Montlake a second time with new coach Jedd Fisch -- in a short amount of time has been getting the last laugh on his previous rejection. His coaching reputation has never been better. The players swear by him. Yet he never thought he'd back at the place that once fired him.

"When it happened, no, I'm going to be real honest," he said of the UW this spring. "But it's been fantastic. I couldn't be more fired up to be back here and continue the success this program has had for the last 10 years or so."

After his dismissal, Paopao joined UNLV for a season and spent the last three at Arizona with Fisch.

Paopao, entrusted with getting veterans Quentin Moore and Ryan Otton ready to play this coming season, has had a very good week and drawn a lot of outside praise for securing tight ends for the future.

He secured oral commitments from a pair of 4-star tight ends in 6-foot-6, 215-pound Vander Ploog from Fullerton, California, and in 6-foot-4, 235-pound Baron Naone from West Linn, Oregon, considered two of the best at their position on the West Coast.

This comes after Paopao helped keep two other promising young tight ends in the Fisch fold in 6-foot-5, 248-pound Charlie Crowell from Bend, Oregon, who signed with him at Arizona and flipped to the Huskies, and 6-foot-3, 220-pound Decker DeGraaf from San Dimas, California, a DeBoer signee who stayed put.

While the Huskies still need players here and there throughout the lineup, such as offensive and defensive linemen to emerge in fall camp and beyond, they appear fairly set at tight end for some time.

The way Paopao is going in Montlake this time, he won't be leaving any time soon.

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