{"id":71735,"date":"2025-01-16T15:00:57","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T20:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=71735"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:39:07","slug":"changes-in-washingtons-staff-on-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/01\/16\/changes-in-washingtons-staff-on-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes in Washington’s Staff on Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Belichick\u2019s departure after just one season<\/a> at Washington was just the beginning of the staff changes on the defensive side of the football. Former Illinois defensive coordinator and Purdue head coach Ryan Walters is now the coordinator<\/a> for Washington\u2019s defense. Safeties coach Vinnie Sunseri left after the Sun Bowl, and Washington also lost a crucial piece of its recruiting staff in recent days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vinnie Sunseri To Jax State<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After the Sun Bowl, Jacksonville State announced that Sunseri would become the team\u2019s new defensive coordinator. The 33-year-old has quickly progressed through the coaching ranks, beginning as a graduate assistant at Alabama in 2019 following his NFL playing career. He spent one season there, and one season as a defensive coaching assistant for the New England Patriots with the Belichicks. Sunseri became the Patriots’ running backs coach from 2021 to 2023.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jedd Fisch hired him as the safeties coach at Washington this past season. The Husky secondary became one of the top units in the Big Ten Conference. Sunseri led a group of veteran starting safeties including Kamren Fabiculanan<\/a> and Cameron Broussard<\/a> while building a foundation of younger talent including Peyton Waters and Vincent Holmes. Waters is one of two Husky defenders who have transferred to North Carolina. Linebacker Khmori House<\/a> being the other. Washington finished this season with the nation\u2019s fourth-leading pass defense. Now, Sunseri is heading back to his home state of Alabama to coordinate the Jacksonville State defense just seven seasons into his coaching career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor Mays Hired As Safeties Coach<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Washington has hired Taylor Mays to be the team\u2019s next safeties coach, replacing Sunseri. Mays spent the last three seasons as a defensive analyst for USC, but his ties to Washington are significant. Mays\u2019 father Stafford Mays played college football at Washington in the 1970\u2019s. Fast forward to the early 2000s, Mays played high school football at O\u2019Dea High School in downtown Seattle. Mays worked his way up to become the number one recruit in the state of Washington before committing to play at USC for Pete Carroll in the class of 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n

His three seasons as a defensive analyst at USC are his only three seasons in coaching. But Mays has exactly what Fisch wants in a coach – an NFL pedigree. Washington\u2019s new safeties coach was a second-round draft pick and played seven seasons in the NFL on defense. His ties to Carroll were surely also a factor in Washington\u2019s decision to pursue Mays on its staff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Key Loss in Recruiting Staff<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Washington\u2019s assistant director of recruiting Armond Hawkins Jr. has left to become the defensive backs coach on Belichick\u2019s staff at North Carolina. Hawkins was a key member of the Huskies\u2019 recruiting staff. He played significant roles in landing many of the programs\u2019 top prospects in the class of 2025. Hawkins began his coaching career at USC in 2020 as the director of high school relations. He spent a year at Colorado in 2022 before Fisch hired him to become the assistant director of recruiting at Arizona in 2023. Hawkins was one of several coaches who followed Fisch up to Seattle in 2024. At Washington, he continued to recruit and took on an analyst role for the defense as well. Just days before his move to North Carolina, Hawkins was on the road recruiting the class of 2026. He’s now headed to ACC country.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Belichick\u2019s departure after just one season at Washington was just the beginning of the staff changes on the defensive side of the football. Former Illinois defensive coordinator and Purdue head coach Ryan Walters is now the coordinator for Washington\u2019s defense. Safeties coach Vinnie Sunseri left after the Sun Bowl, and Washington also lost a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":71745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,35612],"tags":[34777,7983,1666,10272,33377,34776,33458,509],"class_list":["post-71735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-bigten","category-washington-huskies","tag-armond-hawkins-jr","tag-big-ten-football","tag-jedd-fisch","tag-ryan-walters","tag-steve-belichick","tag-taylor-mays","tag-vinnie-sunseri","tag-washington-huskies"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3944"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71746,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71735\/revisions\/71746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}