Huskies' Schmidt Talks About New Job and How It Came About

With inordinate success comes opportunity, and Eric Schmidt is the first from the highly accomplished University of Washington football staff to earn an outside promotion.

On Saturday, the edge-rushers coach spoke for the first time about taking his new job as the San Diego State defensive coordinator for recently hired coach Sean Lewis.

Outside of being on opposite sides for last year's UW season opener against Kent State, where Lewis previously coached before going to Colorado as the offensive coordinator this past season, they didn't know each other.

"We hadn't had a prior relationship," Schmidt said. "We had some mutual colleagues that we got in touch with. It kind of happened fast. I had an opportunity to do some research on Sean. Great guy. Everyone thinks highly of him.

"It was one of those things where we kind of got on the phone, did some Zoom, things clicked, got some chemistry there and one thing led to another."

As part of his arrangement, Schmidt requested that he be able to finish the UW's College Football Playoff run for however long it lasts before leaving for San Diego State.

"I think you got to do things for our players and for the guys around here, and I just feel you owe it to them to finish the job," Schmidt said. "I think that was something that was important to me."

Arriving with coach Kalen DeBoer from Fresno State, Schmidt is the first to break up the original Husky staff that has gone 24-2 over two seasons.

He commanded coaching respect in Montlake by making much better players out of Bralen Trice, Zion Tupuola-Fetui and last year Jeremiah Martin, all edge rushers who have received some sort of All-Pac-12 attention.

In fact, Schmidt developed so much trust with his players he was able to get everyone on board last season when he started Martin over ZTF, who had been a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2020 before suffering a series of injuries. ZTF was patient enough to stick with the DeBoer program and his position coach following that demotion rather than run to the transfer portal.

"It's hard, you're leaving some guys you recruited, you're leaving some guys you spent a lot of time with, blood sweat and tears," he said. "I think that's the neat part about our whole organization is you don't take that for granted. You're leaving guys you went to war with, solved problems with. That bond never goes away."

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