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Inside The Huskies

Ex-UW Secondary Coach Will Harris Joins Florida Staff

He's on his third job since leaving Montlake following the Jimmy Lake firing.
Dan Raley|
Ex-UW Secondary Coach Will Harris Joins Florida Staff
Ex-UW Secondary Coach Will Harris Joins Florida Staff

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Washington Huskies

Will Harris, a former University of Washington secondary coach who oversaw the development of NFL-bound corners Trent McDuffie and Kyler Gordon, on Monday was hired by Florida to coach its defensive backs.

Harris, 36, joins Billy Napier's staff that is undergoing an expected shake-up following a 5-7 season in which the Gators lost their final five games of the season.

Since Lake's staff was fired in 2021, Harris has been on the constant move, first joining Clay Helton's Georgia Southern staff as its defensive coordinator for a year before spending the first 14 weeks of this season with the Los Angeles Chargers as an assistant secondary coach in charge of the cornerbacks.

His work with McDuffie and Gordon, former Husky cornerbacks who became immediate NFL starters, has provided him with plenty cache in seeking coaching jobs.

A former USC safety for Pete Carroll, Harris was a popular coach during his time in Montlake. He joined Chris Petersen's staff in 2018 and carried over when Jimmy Lake took over as coach in 2020.

Harris is remembered for keeping UW players loose during the Lake firing and a difficult time. For the 2021 Arizona State game, He sauntered into Husky Stadium wearing a full-length coat during the pregame Dawg Walk and dancing to the strains of "Atomic Dog" blasting through the public-address system.

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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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