Skip to main content
Inside The Huskies

Shephard Makes Triumphant Northwest Return to Restore OSU

The personable former Huskies receivers coach draws his first lead role in Corvallis.
Dan Raley|
JaMarcus Shephard always has been a fun guy to be around.
JaMarcus Shephard always has been a fun guy to be around. | UW

In their 24 months of University of Washington football together, Kalen DeBoer was the trusted chief executive officer, Ryan Grubb the evil genius and JaMarcus Shephard, well, he was the rapidly pounding heartbeat.

It wasn't hard to see that Shephard, then the Huskies wide receivers coach, was on a fast track to greater responsibility, based on personality alone.

He was the guy whose voice, whose cackle, echoed through Husky Stadium after he walked out of the tunnel.

The one who often ran passing routes alongside his receivers, who chest-bumped them, who inspired them.

Two years after leaving the Northwest and accompanying DeBoer to Alabama, Shephard is on his way back, full of authority as much as personality, after getting hired on Friday as the next Oregon State football coach.

Huskies wide receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard has his game face on before the 2024 CFP national championship game.
Huskies wide receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard has his game face on before the 2024 CFP national championship game. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Shepard will replace Trent Bray, a former Beavers linebacker who was let go after his team opened the current season 0-7, and will become the school's 32nd football coach.

He joins a cast of OSU coaches who have included Tommy Prothro, Dee Andros, Lon Stiner, Dennis Erickson, Mike Riley, Dave Kragthorpe, Jerry Pettibone and Jonathan Smith.

It was just a matter of time before Shephard was entrusted with having a college football program all to himself to rekindle and rebuild.

If the good people of Corvallis, Oregon, aren't laughing right now after receiving this news, or at least smiling, they will be.

While Shepard, 42, has a considerable challenge ahead of him in rebuilding a 2-9 team, this Indiana native and talented pass-catcher in his own right at DePauw University in his home state promises to make the journey fun.

Oregon State will mark his third coaching foray into the Northwest. Besides working at the UW in 2022 and 2023, he spent the 2016 season at Washington State as a wide receivers coach for the late Mike Leach.

DeBoer brought him to the Huskies after he worked four seasons at Purdue on Jeff Brohm's staff, acting on favorable recommendations.

He made Shephard his associate head coach and passing game coordinator, as well as the receivers coach working with the NFL-bound Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan and Ja'Lynn Polk, and then freshman Denzel Boston, who is likely to join the others in the pros.

Now it's on to Oregon State, where his good humor and inspirational coaching methods will be heard and felt all the way to Seattle.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Published | Modified
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.

Home/Football