Washington wide receivers coach Bush Hamdan has accepted the Atlanta Falcons offer to become their quarterbacks coach, UW head coach Chris Petersen announced Friday. Hamdan interviewed this week for the position with Petersen well aware of the situation.
Hamdan leaves UW after just one season as a full-time assistant under his former head coach at Boise State. Petersen hired Hamdan in February 2015 as a quality control assistant after coaching at Davison, Arkansas State, Florida and Sacramento State in various full-time roles.
The Huskies are expected to take a couple weeks to fill the position with a short list of candidates already lined up, source said. Hamdan is the second coach to leave Washington under Petersen, with the first being defensive line coach Jeff Choate to become head coach at Montana State.
Petersen has also seen graduate assistants Gerald Alexander (defensive backs) and Kirby Moore (wide recivers) get promotions to full-time assistants. Alexander followed Choate to MSU while Moore left this offseason to join Jeff Tedford at Fresno State.
Hamdan paired with Smith to rejuvenate a once anemic Washington offense to average over 41 points per game in 2016. But potentially more important, Hamdan made a quick and powerful impact on the recruiting trail landing four-star WR Terrell Bynum, along with two highly coveted three-star WR's in Alex Cook and Ty Jones.
This past weekend 2018 four-star WR Austin Osborne committed to UW as the first receiver in the class, with the knowledge that Hamdan could leave for the Falcons. Osborne reiterated Wednesday he is sticking with Washington and taking only one official visit: Washington.