Hampton Goes From Washington to Washington in NFL Draft

The Commanders take the Husky safety in the fifth round.

Dom Hampton celebrates the Sugar Bowl win over Texas. / Skylar Lin Visuals

He played more games than any other University of Washington football player in the history of the program -- 57 -- topped by his national championship showdown appearance against Michigan, but Dominque Hampton is hardly too exhausted to keep going.

Especially since he has a chance to move from Washington to Washington football-wise.

On Saturday, the Commanders from the nation's capital city made the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Hampton the 161st pick in the fifth round of the NFL Draft, raising the number of Huskies selected to nine at that point.

Appropriately so, he followed a guy in the draft order whom he played directly behind for six years in Montlake, UW linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio, who went to the Buffalo Bills with the 160th selection.

Fifty-seven Husky outings?

That's a lot of opportunities for tackles, pass break-ups, interceptions and getting knocked silly because of all of it. This defensive back has kept his head about it.

"That's definitely a lot of games," Hampton said. "But with games, comes experience."

The Commanders are getting a big and fast player originally from Glendale, Arizona, who tried every secondary position for the Huskies.

Hampton was a much more slender cornerback when he appeared in four games for the Huskies back as a first-year player in 2018 for Chris Petersen's coaching staff, and was a little ahead of his time. The aforementioned Ulofoshio, then a walk-on, played just three games for the UW that season, as did future Husky quarterback Michael Penix Jr. that year at Indiana.

One of Hampton's 2018 outings was against Utah in the Pac-12 championship game, where his coaches named him special-teams player of the game. 

He played in 11 games in 2019 and four more in 2020, all coming off the bench, before starting 3 of 11 for Jimmy Lake's staff in 2021 to make his way into the lineup.

DeBoer's guys came in and saw a safety in Hampton, drawn to his size, speed and experience, before moving him to nickelback, where he started 11 of 12 games in 2022, and then back to safety, where he opened all 15 games last season, getting named All-Pac-12 honorable mention.

Now Hampton will try to show the Commanders he's ready to play for them whenever they give him the go-ahead.

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