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Inside The Huskies

Foster Firing Has Career Implications for Pair of Former Huskies

Ikaika Malloe and Scott White likely will be job-hunting after UCLA coaching change.
Dan Raley|
UCLA defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe, the former UW player and coach, celebrates with his players.
UCLA defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe, the former UW player and coach, celebrates with his players. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

DeShaun Foster was a great football player.

A Rick Neuheisel-coached University of Washington team knew this painfully well when in 2001 Foster ran 31 times for 301 yards and 3 touchdowns, including a 92-yard breakaway score, in UCLA's 35-13 victory over the Huskies.

However, as a Bruins head coach, no one feared him.

Foster, promoted from running backs coach to replace Chip Kelly last year, seemed woefully unprepared for the job, showed great disinterest in promoting his program and watched everything finally crash and burn on Saturday night with a 35-10 loss in an empty Rose Bowl to fall to 0-3.

His Sunday firing has wide-reaching effects, of course, for a pair of former Huskies defensive players turned Bruins coaches in Ikaika Malloe and Scott White who likely are out of jobs at the end of the season.

This workplace outcome has to be particularly disheartening for Malloe, a former Husky safety and linebacker in (1992-95) and UW linebackers and edge rushers coach (2016-22), who had diligently and loyally worked his way up to defensive coordinator in four seasons at UCLA.

After honing his coaching career in Montlake in four stable years with Chris Petersen, Malloe has had the great misfortune of aligning himself with Jimmy Lake, Chip Kelly and Foster, all leaders who were dismissed from their jobs or disinterested in what they were doing and left.

White, a UW linebacker (2003-06), had advanced coaching career in Los Angeles after previous stops at San Jose State, Palomar College, Central Washington and even Seattle Preparatory School. He'll likely be sending out resumes soon.

Foster had an awkward moment when, as the new UCLA head coach at 2024 Big Ten Media Day, he sat in front of a room full of media members and basically had nothing cogent to say. He just didn't seem long for the top job and all of its pressing needs.

Entering this season, he spoke a little more eloquently about the Bruins but admitted he hadn't convinced everyone that he had everything moving in a positive direction.

"I know there are questions about our progress and expectations and how well we'll perform in this conference -- that's totally fair," Foster said in Las Vegas.

Scott White, former UW linebacker on the left, was promoted to UCLA associate head coach and LB coach.
Scott White, former UW linebacker on the left, was promoted to UCLA associate head coach and LB coach. | UCLA

In an era of NIL, where player promotion and subsequent fund-raising on their behalf has to be part of every college program, Foster shut his team off from most media interaction.

It showed when his team played New Mexico in a cavernous and near empty Rose Bowl. Nobody cared. And he wasn't spared, nor will be Malloe or White.

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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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