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Huff's Husky Coaching Reputation Continues to Climb

Look where the UW offensive-line coach ranks on this list.
Dan Raley|
Huff's Husky Coaching Reputation Continues to Climb
Huff's Husky Coaching Reputation Continues to Climb

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Washington Huskies

As the University of Washington football team began to wobble in 2021, everyone was to blame.

The offense didn't work. The defense didn't stop anyone. Injuries were lethal. The losses piled up.

With the inevitable coaching change, one accelerated by Jimmy Lake's  player shove, suspension and subsequent banishment likely for multiple reasons, the curious thing back then was to consider who among the coaches might survive that mess. 

Once Kalen DeBoer signed on, offensive-line coach Scott Huff was the only familiar face who remained.

Some fans groaned because Huff's line had greatly underperformed, as well. Or maybe John Donovan's pro-style offense hadn't given it a chance to succeed. Clearly, some of those guys weren't in very good shape or out of position. Either way, things needed to improve up front and fast.

Today, Huff enters his seventh season on the job in Montlake and some people really like what he's doing. Consider that prolific college football list-maker Big Game Boomer has Huff ranked sixth among the nation's line coaches, second in the Pac-12 only to Oregon State's well-traveled Jim Michalczik.

In this list, which is one person's opinion, of course, Huff holds higher regard than his peers at Ohio State, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA and Oregon, to name just a few. 

"My whole career, it's been very fortunate — I've had a lot of stability in it," said Huff, who was part of Chris Petersen's staff at Boise State and the UW before Petersen retired. 

Coming up, Huff has the biggest position rebuild of any of his UW colleagues, faced with finding three new starters who it is hoped will perform nearly as effectively as the guys they replace. Topping those departed players will be tough to do, though.

Part of the reason for Huff's enhanced reputation is the fact the Huskies allowed just seven sacks all of last season. He's also coached a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in each of his six seasons — thank you Jaxson Kirkland for three of those. 

Huff is every reason you don't make knee-jerk decisions if you can help it when things get tough, because everything just might smooth out if you stay the course.

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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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