Inside The Huskies

Ex-UW DL Coach Breckterfield Changes Course Once More

He was all set to work for JaMarcus Shephard at his alma mater, but appears to have taken another job.
Dan Raley|
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

Inoke Breckterfield, the former University of Washington defensive-line coach, is a hard man to nail down, even by his alma mater

Not quite three weeks after Oregon State announced Breckterfield would join JaMarcus Shephard's new coaching staff to oversee the Beavers' defensive line, but ESPN and multiple outlets reported on Sunday the coach had changed course once more and reportedly will go to Utah as a defensive-ends coach instead.

Breckerfield did this sort of thing -- jumping programs late in the process -- two years ago after coaching for the Huskies, too.

Once Kalen DeBoer exited the UW for Alabama, leaving most of his staff to fend for itself, Breckterfield accepted a job to coach San Diego State's defensive line.

That relationship didn't last long, with this guy almost immediately taking a another job at Baylor, where he coached for the past two years.

Breckerterfield passed up a chance to return to Oregon State, where he played in 1995-99 and was the Pac-12's Morris Trophy winner as the conference's top lineman as a senior.

He also passed up a chance to be reunited with Shephard, who worked alongside Breckterfield on DeBoer's staff at the UW in 2022 and 2023.

Instead, he'll turn to Utah, which lost coach Kyle Whittingham and others to Michigan and is now headed up by Morgan Scalley, who was promoted after serving as the Utes' defensive coordinator for a decade.

Breckterfield originally began his coaching career as an Oregon State graduate assistant before taking full-time jobs with Weber State, Montana, UCLA, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, the UW and Baylor.

With all the job-changing for him, the always serious-minded and stoic Breckterfield obviously is well thought of across the college football landscape.

Among his coaching credits, he turned the now retired Aaron Donald into playmaking defensive linemen who eventually became the best at his position in the NFL.

At the UW, he he was left to work largely with the inherited Tuli Letuligasenoa, Faatui Tuitele, Ulumoo Ale and Jacob Bandes. However, none of them were able to land NFL careers.

At Oregon State, Breckterfield was an undersized but strong defensive lineman who was on the same roster with quarterback Jonathan Smith, who was a UW offensive coordinator before becoming the head coach at Oregon State and Michigan State.

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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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