UCLA Football Preview: Kalen DeBoer Is Turning Huskies Around Quickly

The former Fresno State coach hired much of his staff from his former school.

New Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer has a reason to be smiling after his Huskies have started the season 4-0. (Photo Credit: gohuskies.com)

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When you succeed in college football, you eventually move on to a better program. That’s what has happened with the University of Washington’s new head coach.

According to Bryan Fischer of Fox Sports, Washington brought in Fresno State head coach Kalen DeBoer to fix the Huskies’ offensive woes. And, so far, it’s been a big success. That’s not something new for DeBoer.

DeBoer was very successful in his first head coaching gig. From 2005 to2009, he went 67-3 at the University of Sioux Falls. That included three NAIA National Championships in four trips. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he moved on and eventually became an FBS head coach at Fresno State in 2020.

DeBoer went 3-3 in 2020’s COVID-shortened season before going 8-3 last season. It was a season in which DeBoer beat Chip Kelly, 40-37. DeBoer’s three losses last season came against Oregon, Hawai’i and Boise State.

So, it really isn’t surprising that DeBoer has the Huskies off to a 4-0 start this season.

And, if that’s not enough, most of DeBoer’s staff was a part of the Fresno State coaching staff last season.

Kelly had the Bruins ranked 13th in the nation after winning their first two games of the season last year when Fresno State came to the Rose Bowl.

In DeBoer’s first season as head coach of the Bulldogs, the team finished 3-3, which should be seen as an improvement after they finished 4-8 in 2019 while DeBoer was at Indiana.

Assisting DeBoer offensively is Ryan Grubb. Grubb is now in his fourth season on DeBoer’s staff. Grubb served as the OC for DeBoer at Fresno State and also worked as the Bulldogs’ offensive line coach when DeBoer was the team’s OC. Grubb and DeBoer have a shared history. In addition to Fresno State, they coached together at both Eastern Michigan and Sioux Falls. They’ve been on the same coaching staffs since 2004 with the exception of DeBoer’s time as the OC at Southern Illinois from 2010 to 2013 and his season at Indiana. No wonder the Bulldogs’ offense played so well last season and, so far, they are doing the same thing for the Huskies.

William Inge followed DeBoer to Seattle after last season to be the team’s co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. When DeBoer took over the Bulldogs, he hired Inge to be Fresno State’s defensive coordinator. Inge joined DeBoer’s staff after being the special teams coordinator at Indiana when DeBoer was there, but he has twenty years of experience coaching defense including stints as either the defensive coordinator or co-defensive coordinator at Indiana, Buffalo and Northern Iowa. He’s also coached for the Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati, San Diego State and Colorado.

The Huskies’ other co-defensive coordinator is Chuck Morrell. Morrell has also been a longtime DeBoer assistant going back to their days with Sioux Falls where he was the team’s defensive coordinator. Morrell goes back even further with DeBoer. They were teammates at Sioux Falls and won an NAIA national championship as players while they were there. Morrell also coaches the team’s safeties.

Knowing how long DeBoer’s staff has worked together, it’s not really surprising that they have Washington off to a 4-0 start or that they beat a Michigan State team in Week Three that had been previously ranked #11 and #9 in the Top 25 polls. Now, the Huskies play their first road game of the year when they visit the Rose Bowl on Friday night.

Expect DeBoer and staff to have his team ready to play.

Special Teams

How much better is Washington offensively this season?

Not only has senior kicker Peyton Henry has been perfect so far this season, he’s almost matched both his field goal and PAT totals from all of last season after just four games. That’s pretty telling. He’s made all seven field goal attempts. While six of the seven tries have been inside 40 yards, he also made his only attempt beyond that when he hit a 47-yarder against Stanford this past weekend. Henry is also a perfect 21-for-21 on extra points attempts.

Redshirt freshman punter Jack McCallister has only punted nine times in four game this season. Three of McCallister’s nine punts have landed inside the 20 and two more have gone for touchbacks. Overall, he is averaging just over 40 yards per punt and his long is 51.

Neither Henry nor McCallister will kick the ball off for the Huskies. Instead, that falls to freshman Grady Gross. Gross has kicked off 24 times and only eight of them have gone for toucbacks. Gross is averaging just 62.1 yards per kickoff, meaning that they typically land short of the goal line and UCLA should expect to have to return Washington’s kickoffs.

Look for junior wide receiver Giles Jackson to return both punts and kickoffs for Washington. On punts, Jackson has returned five of the six punt returns the Huskies have had. He is averaging just nine yards per punt return and his long is just 16 yards.

Jackson is faring better on kickoff returns. He’s averaging 24.7 yards per return there with a long of 33 this season. That still isn’t great, but his career long is 43. So, he has some potential to break a big return if an opponent’s coverage falls apart.


Go Bruins!!!

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