Washington Huskies defensive coordinator Ryan Walters agrees to new deal

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Washington defensive coordinator Ryan Walters, center, and his staff watch as the Huskies try to get a red-zone stop against Illinois on Oct. 25 at Husky Stadium. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

Washington defensive coordinator Ryan Walters, center, and his staff watch as the Huskies try to get a red-zone stop against Illinois on Oct. 25 at Husky Stadium. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

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Andy Yamashita
By
Andy Yamashita

Seattle Times staff reporter

Jedd Fisch and the Huskies will have some continuity at defensive coordinator next season. And perhaps even longer.

Ryan Walters, now entering his second season as UW’s defensive coordinator, has re-signed with the Huskies, Fisch announced during his news conference Wednesday. Walters’ deal ties him to UW through the 2027 season according to his new contract, acquired by The Seattle Times. Walters will earn $2 million, making him one of the highest-paid assistants in the country.

His previous contract, also acquired by The Times, expired after the 2026 season and was due to pay Walters $1.5 million for the upcoming season.

“I appreciate our donors, and I appreciate our administration making it happen,” Fisch said. “We were able to re-sign Ryan. We’ve got a lot of people out there looking to try and get the best. I told you all last year I thought he was one of the best. If not the best in the country. I’ll double down on that.”

Walters, previously a defensive coordinator at Missouri and Illinois before a difficult tenure as head coach at Purdue, arrived at Washington before the 2025 season, replacing former coordinator Steve Belichick. The Huskies improved almost across the board during Walters’ first season in Seattle, particularly in run defense. After allowing 161.8 yards rushing per game under Belichick during the 2024 campaign, Walters and the Huskies limited opposing teams to 100.2 yards per game in 2025.

The Huskies gave up just 18.7 points per game in 2025, too, improving on and never surrendered more than 26 points in a game.

“The jumps we made on defense,” Fisch said, “were pretty significant.”




Andy Yamashita: ayamashita@seattletimes.com. Andy Yamashita is a sports reporter at The Seattle Times, primarily covering Washington Huskies football.
 
Finally got something right.

Hilarious to think he's paid half as much as Demond
 
Moore reportedly got 7 million to stay at Oregon. Almost as much as Fisch

Could be bullshit but he did have a better year
 
Happy he’s back. Also concerned long term that the head guy has to have a high end DC to have a good defense and when he finally figures out how to coach offense in a year or two he’ll be breaking in a new DC and the defense will suck.
 
Probably easily the MVP for the team in 2025. Close runner up was the shitty offenses they played.
 
Didn't Arizona have a good defense under Fisch with Johnny Patron as coordinator? It would be unusual and funny for Fisch, an offensive minded coach who refuses to hand over the play calling to an offensive coordinator, to have defenses that consistently outperform his offenses.
 
Bob_C said:
Happy he’s back. Also concerned long term that the head guy has to have a high end DC to have a good defense and when he finally figures out how to coach offense in a year or two he’ll be breaking in a new DC and the defense will suck.
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Almost have to wonder if it had been better to lose Walters and have the wheels come off.

Win for the program though, maybe with the soft schedule UW will luck into the playoffs and Chun will fumble the extension. Pray for St Haden pt 2.
 
RaceBannon said:
The script says the offense surprises and the defense sucks
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Yep. We faced pretty terrible offenses all season. Even the half way decent ones like Ohio State and Oregon were insanely conservative as they knew our offense wasn’t gonna do shit. Why take any chances when you can just get to 20 points and run the clock out.
 
Bob_C said:
Yep. We faced pretty terrible offenses all season. Even the half way decent ones like Ohio State and Oregon were insanely conservative as they knew our offense wasn’t gonna do shit. Why take any chances when you can just get to 20 points and run the clock out.
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It felt like offenses are way behind defenses in college football this year and especially in the Big 10. I think teams willing to overpay the QBs like Demond we're seeing right now suggests that's not going to change.
 
WoolleyDoog said:
It felt like offenses are way behind defenses in college football this year and especially in the Big 10. I think teams willing to overpay the QBs like Demond we're seeing right now suggests that's not going to change.
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Seems the last two years have been leaning that way. Totally anecdotal reasoning here is that defenses can fill in major holes quickly now where in the old system if you had a bad two years of recruiting/developing a position group, that problem would linger for two more seasons and offenses could exploit that over and over.
 
Less practice time hurts offense

That's why most NFL teams run the same stuff despite all the genius play callers

Cough
 
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