Inside The Huskies

New Husky DB Coach Sunseri Has Impressive Family Football Connections, Too

The former Alabama safety comes to the UW from a stint with the New England Patriots.
Dan Raley|
New Husky DB Coach Sunseri Has Impressive Family Football Connections, Too
New Husky DB Coach Sunseri Has Impressive Family Football Connections, Too

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Washington Huskies

Vinnie Sunseri doesn't have a dad who's a former NFL head coach, just one with 40 years of coaching experience for some of the largest college football programs nationwide with a few pro stops mixed in.

The hiring of the younger Sunseri on Monday as a University of Washington defensive assistant coach for Jedd Fisch's staff has been a little overshadowed by all of the Belichick and Carroll hoopla surrounding the Huskies, but his family credentials are no less impressive.

Sunseri, 32, who is expected to coach the Husky safeties, is the son of Sal, who has coached at LSU, Michigan State, Louisville, Florida, Florida State, multiple stints at Alabama, with the Carolina Panthers and Oakland Raiders, and he's currently the defensive-tackles coach for Colorado and Deion Sanders.

Not only that, Vinnie Sunseri's brother, Tino, is the Indiana quarterbacks coach, which means these siblings will go head to head on Oct. 26 when the Huskies visit Bloomington for a Big Ten game.

The younger Sunseri will introduce himself around the Husky locker room as someone who coached New England Patriots running backs for the past three seasons as part of Bill Belichick's staff. In 2020, he and Steve Belichick and Fisch were all Patriots assistant coaches together. The younger Belichick is expected to be named as the UW's new defensive coordinator on Monday.

Sunseri also is the second former Alabama football player to come to Montlake after the Crimson Tide hired away the UW's Kalen DeBoer and his offensive staff, who left the Northwest with a handful of players and recruits in tow.

New Husky strength coach Tyler Owens and Sunseri were Alabama teammates in 2011-2013, with Owens playing linebacker and Sunseri lining up at safety for the legendary Nick Saban. They shared in national championships in 2011 and 2012.

A Sunseri personal highlight while with the Crimson Tide was his interception of a Johnny Manziel pass in 2013, a year after the Texas A&M quarterback won the Heisman Trophy, and his 73-yard return while bumping into would-be tacklers for a hard-earned touchdown.

Sunseri became a fifth-round draft pick for the New Orleans Saints and played in 15 NFL games, 9 for the Saints in 2014 and 6 for the San Francisco 49ers in 2016.

Once done with that, he began his coaching career in 2019 at Alabama for Saban as a graduate assistant and eventually returned to the NFL to coach and now back to the college game.

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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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