Inside The Huskies

Ex-Husky Coach Breckterfield Comes Full Circle With Beavers

JaMarcus Shephard vowed he would put a former player on his new OSU staff.
Dan Raley|
Inoke Breckterfield, former UW defensive-line coach, is shown with recruit Pulelei'ite Primus.
Inoke Breckterfield, former UW defensive-line coach, is shown with recruit Pulelei'ite Primus. | Baylor

When they were University of Washington football assistant coaches, JaMarcus Shephard was the loud one, the funny one, the guy with the cackle.

Inoke Breckterfield was the total opposite, circumspect, serious, reserved.

Shephard came from Purdue to join Kalen DeBoer's Husky staff as the receivers coach, Breckterfield from Vanderbilt to supervise the defensive linemen, and they shared in a program that won 25 of 28 games and played for a national championship.

Both of these men work for Oregon State now, with Shephard taking over as the head coach with great fanfare and making what team followers suggest was a masterful stroke by convincing Breckterfield to join him as his D-line coach.

After promising to have a former Beavers player on his new coaching staff, he went out and brought back Breckterfield, who remains one of the most decorated individuals to play in Corvallis -- winning the 1998 Morris Trophy as the Pac-12's top defensive lineman and earning first-team all-conference honors.

Nearly three decades ago, Breckterfield left town as OSU's all-time leader in tackles for loss (55.5) and sacks (19.5), and he still ranks second in each category all these years later.

This particular hire is Shephard pushing all of the right buttons as the new leader for a program that bottomed out with a 2-10 season and was left behind in the ruins of the Pac-12 as everyone else except Washington State fled the conference for a new league.

Inoke Breckterfield is shown during his time as a UW assistant coach.
Inoke Breckterfield is shown during his time as a UW assistant coach. | Dan Raley

By bringing Breckterfield home, the new coach is trying to get people to care about Oregon State football again whereas team followers might have felt the program was no longer recognizable and certainly not very competitive after getting run over for a lot of yards and points.

Breckterfield began his coaching career with the Beavers in 2006 as a volunteer and a graduate assistant over a three-year span.

Inoke Breckterfield was a Wisconsin assistant in his long-winding coaching career.
Inoke Breckterfield was a Wisconsin assistant in his long-winding coaching career. | USA TODAY photo

From Corvallis, he moved to Weber State, Montana, UCLA, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin and Vanderbilt, before Kalen DeBoer brought him to the Northwest.

After a two-year coaching stay at Baylor, once DeBoer and Shephard left the UW for Alabama, Breckterfield has navigated his way to the Northwest, specifically to where it all began for him on the college football level.

This all had to put a smile on the face of the normally stoic line coach as he considered his latest career path

Who knows, maybe Shephard will teach Breckterfield how to cackle out loud as they go about a Beavers resurgence.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Published
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.

Home/Football