Inside The Huskies

Ducks Add Former UW Defensive Line Coach to Staff

The crossover continues between the two rival schools.
Dan Raley|
Rip Rowan, right, dines with the UW defensive linemen in 2021.
Rip Rowan, right, dines with the UW defensive linemen in 2021. | UW

Oregon unveiled its latest college football coaching staff, which runs a wieldy 34 people deep, and invariably one of them has a University of Washington connection.

Elwyn "Rip" Rowan.

Don't remember him?

Rowan was the defensive-line coach for the Huskies for one season only on Jimmy Lake's staff in 2021.

He lasted just 12 months in a full-time position in Montlake because Lake got fired for sideline misconduct -- shoving a player -- during the Oregon game, no less.

So five years later, the Ducks will make Rowan an assistant defensive-line coach, in charge of the pass rush.

Rowan becomes one of a number of coaches who have crossed over from the UW to Oregon, with Junior Adams, Bob Gregory and Tosh Lopoi among the others.

A Georgia native, Rowan seemed personable and relatable when he met with the media in Seattle and told his story.

From a UW quality-control defensive coach, he was elevated after defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski left for Texas and Lake shuffled staff responsibilities internally with the COVID pandemic preventing him from going outside to find another coach.

"It was a Friday afternoon, we had a half day and I was jogging around Lake Union," Rowan said. "He called me and I almost hit my knees, man, and I was speechless. I was holding back tears. It was awesome. It was an unreal experience."

Once the Lake situation imploded and the Huskies finished 4-8, everyone on the coaching staff except for offensive-line coach Scott Huff had to find a new job.

Rowan ended up at Georgia Southern, back in his home state, coaching the defensive line for three seasons for Clay Helton.

A year ago, he took a chance on the NFL and joined Pete Carroll's coaching staff as an assistant defensive-line coach for the Las Vegas Raiders, and found himself out of work once more when Carroll was let go.

Now it's on to Oregon in somewhat of a support role, if not starting over in the coaching hierarchy, and no doubt he'll be asked to explain his nickname over and over.

Rowan was named after his grandfather Elwyn P. “Rip” Rowan, who, according to his biography in the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, earned the nickname due to his ability to rip through defensive lines as a running back at Memphis’ Central High School in the early 1940s. 

The original “Rip” played college football at both LSU and Army, served eight years as a second lieutenant and earned acclaim as the color commentator for Ole Miss football.

So the grandson, once in the UW network, will try his best to beat the Huskies.

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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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