Inside The Huskies

Will Harris Lands on His Feet with Defensive Coordinator Job

The former UW assistant plus two others from the Lake staff were hired together.

Dan Raley

From the burning embers of a disastrous University of Washington football season, most Husky coaches got suspended, fired, took lateral moves and/or are still looking for jobs.

On Tuesday, however, former UW defensive-backs coach Will Harris earned a promotion, becoming the defensive coordinator for Georgia Southern and former USC coach Clay Helton. 

No Statesboro blues for this one-time Trojans cornerback and safety for Pete Carroll (2005-09).

Harris actually is part of a Husky coaching triumvirate that will join Helton's staff, accompanied by ex-UW defensive-line coach Rip Rowan and defensive analyst Aaron Schwanz, who will become the Eagles' D-line coach and linebackers coach, respectively. Rowan is a native of Marietta, Georgia. 

Together, Helton and these Jimmy Lake assistant coaches will try to restore once-proud Georgia Southern to prominence following a 3-9 record and an in-season coaching firing that disrupted everything. Of course, the same thing happened earlier in the season to Helton at USC. 

Harris goes to Georgia Southern with his college coaching reputation fully intact, having helped prepare Byron Murphy, Taylor Rapp, Elijah Molden, Keith Taylor and no doubt Trent McDuffie and Kyler Gordon for NFL careers. His most recent secondary ranked No. 1 in passing yards nationally.

He was the one ousted coach a lot of UW fans would have most preferred to see retained by new coach Kalen DeBoer. However, DeBoer had his preferred secondary coaches in Juice Brown and Chuck Morrell, both of whom he brought with him from Fresno State. 

Harris spent four seasons with the Huskies, originally hired by Chris Petersen and retained by Lake. He came to the UW after two seasons at San Jose State and a series of jobs at lower-level schools such as Dixie State, Humboldt State and Northeastern Oklahoma State.

His players loved him for his fun-loving personality. Before the Arizona State game, as the Huskies did their Dawg Walk, Harris was off to the side dancing and exhorting them on.

Harris is widely considered a rising star among college coaches, and maybe the only one from the Lake staff in Montlake who will become head-coaching material some day.

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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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