The pipeline for players and coaches who travel between the college and professional football ranks hardly works in reverse. The standard protocol is to excel on Saturdays in college and parlay that into a successful career on Sundays with the NFL.
However, for some, it works in reverse order. That was the journey for new Washington Huskies head coach Jedd Fisch, and now he’s trying to recreate that kind of success with the program by interviewing former coaching teammates Steve Belichick and Vinnie Sunseri for roles with the Big Ten outfit.
Steve Belichick, Vinnie Sunseri Going Back to College?
First things first, this is just an interview, or so it’s been reported. ESPN’s Field Yates reported that both Belichick and Sunseri were set to interview with Fisch for defensive jobs on the Washington staff on Friday.
For Belichick, it would be a completely new adventure as he’s not coached at the collegiate level before. But for Sunseri, he would return to the college sidelines after spending a season with the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2019.
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Belichick, the son of legendary NFL head coach Bill Belichick, has been on the New England Patriots staff since 2012. He’s coached a variety of defensive positions, including safeties and the secondary and, most recently, outside linebackers.
He has some college ties, playing under Greg Schiano at Rutgers as the Scarlet Knights long snapper in 2011. But that’s where his collegiate experience begins and ends.
Belichick and Fisch have had a previous working relationship as long as his collegiate career (one season), as the duo worked together during the 2020 season in New England. Fisch coached the quarterbacks for the Patriots in 2020, the same year Belichick took over as the outside linebackers coach.
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As for Sunseri, though new to the coaching ranks, he has risen to prominence during his time with the Patriots. Like Belichick, Sunseri shares the same season of familiarity with Fisch as he joined the staff in 2020 as a defensive coaching assistant.
It’s not clear which positions Sunseri and Belichick are interviewing for on Fisch’s staff, but it’s apparent that Fisch has had them on his mind to potentially bring to Seattle with him.