BREAKING: Washington lets go of two assistant football coaches

Just one day after UW’s decisive 38-7 victory over Boise State in the Las Vegas Bowl, Jimmy Lake has taken the first official actions of his tenure as the new Huskies head coach. The UW Athletic Department announced on Sunday afternoon that neither offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan nor Tight Ends coach Jordan Paopao would be retained.

There had been much speculation about the future of Hamdan following two seasons in a row where UW’s offense has languished. The Huskies offense under his watch has struggled to generate explosive plays, convert third downs and score when in the red zone. Whether his release will impact the looming decision by QB Jacob Eason to enter the NFL draft remains to be seen.

The release of Paopao is a little bit more surprising given both how well the position has been recruited and how well the players there have performed during his tenure. Paopao was the only holdover by Chris Petersen from the Steve Sarkisian staff and, as such, was the longest tenured coach on the roster.

Rumors have been floating around the internet concerning a number of candidates that might be interested in joining UW’s staff. One would expect that Jimmy Lake will take his time to fill each of the three open positions that he currently has available given that his recruiting class if set and many teams still have bowl games in front of them over the next few weeks.

Here is the full release from UW:

An announcement from the UW Football program:

Dec. 22, 2019

Two members of the 2019 Washington football coaching staff – Bush Hamdan and Jordan Paopao – will not be retained for the 2020 season, head coach Jimmy Lake announced today.

“I’ve really enjoyed working alongside Bush and Jordan and appreciate their contributions to Husky football,” said Lake. “These decisions are extremely difficult, but I believe it’s in the best interest of our program to make these changes to align with the vision we have for our team moving forward. I wish them both nothing but the best.”

Hamdan has served as the Huskies’ quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for the last two seasons, having previously worked at UW as a quality control assistant in 2015 and the wide receivers coach in 2016.

Paopao originally came to the UW as a graduate assistant in 2011 and 2012 before being promoted to tight ends coach in 2013.