Inside The Huskies

From Coaching Family, Dougherty Goal Is To Be Head Guy Some Day

The Husky offensive coordinator had his name dropped for a Mountain West opening.
Dan Raley|
Offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty meets with the media each week.
Offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty meets with the media each week. | Dan Raley

If college football head coaches were hired simply for being agreeable and well liked, Jimmie Dougherty would have landed his first big job a decade or more ago.

Instead, the University of Washington offensive coordinator is in his 24th season building a resume, coaching the Huskies for the second time for that matter, and answering to Jedd Fisch after first working for Steve Sarkisian in Montlake.

He actually left the UW for the first time in 2012 to accept a job promotion, going from Sarkisian's receivers coach to San Jose State offensive coordinator.

If the rumor guys have any bankable insight into this, Dougherty, 47, is a candidate at Colorado State, which opened the season playing against him and the Huskies and lost 38-21 in late August, and then fired coach Jay Norvell at midseason.

A CBS Sports report said the Mountain West school has looked at former Auburn and Boise State coach Bryan Harsin, Alabama receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard, Georgia Southern defensive backs coach Donte Williams and Dougherty as potential hires.

Jimmie Dougherty is back for his second stint as a UW assistant coach.
Jimmie Dougherty is back for his second stint as a UW assistant coach. | Dan Raley

Interestingly enough, Shephard, Williams and Dougherty each have UW coaching connections, with Shephard serving as Kalen DeBoer's receivers coach in 2022-23 while Williams worked as a graduate assistant for Sarkisian in 2011-12.

For Dougherty, yes, he would like to be a head coach some day. No, he says he didn't see the story mentioning him.

Or at least if he did know about it, and there's any traction to it, he would be the first one to know it wouldn't be wise for him to acknowledge as much.

Dougherty comes from a coaching family He played quarterback for Edwardsville High School in Edwardsville, Illinois, for his father, Tim, and used that experience to launch his college career at Missouri.

"Yeah, I think we all as coaches have aspirations, goals, dreams, whatever they might be," he said on Tuesday. " I would certainly love to be a head coach one day."

Dougherty also has coached at Michigan, UCLA, Arizona, San Diego and Illinois Wesleyan besides the other schools previously mentioned.

"I've been fortunate enough to be around some great coaches that I've learned a ton from," he said. "You always go through those things in your head at different times, like, 'What would I do if I was in charge and implemented this, that and the other.' I certainly feel fortunate to be part of this great program with coach Fisch."

Asked if he had seen the job reference, Dougherty said no, that he and the other Husky coaches were only focused on Saturday night's UCLA game at the Rose Bowl.

He has that part of the requisite head-coaching responsibilities down pat already -- changing the subject.

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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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