SEATTLE – Chris Petersen has made only four coaching changes in his five years as Washington’s head coach. Late Sunday night that number increased by one.
After spending the past two seasons serving as the Huskies wide receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator, Matt Lubick, 46, is reportedly leaving the world of college football to pursue other career opportunities.
Lubick told Bruce Feldman of The Athletic “I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity with UDub football. It’s an amazing place with special people. I have a great opportunity with a new challenge I’m looking forward to.”
Before joining the UW staff ahead of the 2017 season Lubick spent one year in the same position with the Oregon Ducks. Prior to his latest stop in the Pac-12, Lubick coached at Duke (2010-12), Arizona State (2007-09) and Ole Miss (2005-06) among other stops.
Petersen has fired only one coach since arriving at UW in Dec. 2013, his first receivers coach, Brent Pease. He replaced Pease with then quality control assistant Bush Hamdan, who was a backup quarterback for Petersen at Boise State from 2006-08.
Hamdan proved to be a crucial hire for Petersen as the assistant coach credited with signing four-star Ty Jones in 2016, along with two of the three four-star WR signees in the 2017 class, Marquis Spiker and Austin Osborne.
Petersen has also replaced his defensive and offensive line coach since coming to UW, hiring Ikaika Malloe and Scott Huff after Jeff Choate and Chris Strassuer left for other coaching jobs following the 2015 and 2016 season respectively.
The only other changes Petersen has made to his staff have involved the WR / offensive coordinator position. Lubick replaced Hamdan as the Huskies receivers coach, only to have Hamdan return as OC / QB coach following the departure of Jonathan Smith after the 2017 season.
With the vacancy seemingly viewed a premier assistant coaching position, given that UW just finished a third consecutive 10-win season under Petersen and with the program playing in its third straight New Years Six bowl, there are no shortage of names expected to be on the head coaches’ list.
However, of the potential replacements for Lubick, being a former Husky is not one prerequisite for Petersen when it comes to determining who he hires.
“It really didn’t. I just think it worked out really, really nice,” Petersen said in December, when asked if being a former Husky played a factor when he hired Malloe, a former safety at UW from 1993-96, to replace Choate.
Petersen added onto his his point, saying “I’ll have guys call me when a job opens like, ‘I only want to be in Washington. I only want to be Seattle. Or I’m from Seattle’. I’m like, that’s not the guy that – I’m looking for the guy that goes ‘I will coach in Timbuktu. Like, this is what I do and I’ll do anything’.
“That’s the kind of mentality, not like I only want to be here because this is such. A lot of guys would like to come back to their alma mater, but that doesn’t really mean a lot to me. We’re trying to find the very best coaches in the country that are going to treat these kids a certain way.
“That is the most important thing to me. And then if he happened to go here too, that’s great.”
Some names to consider for the WR position include Kirby Moore (Fresno State WR coach), and Tyler Osborne (UW graduate assistant), with others expected to be on Petersen’s list.
