Washington promotes Bob Gregory to defensive coordinator

Updated Feb. 1, 2021 3:27 p.m. ET

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SEATTLE (AP) — Washington has promoted Bob Gregory to defensive coordinator, the third time in his coaching career that he will be in charge of running a defense.

Gregory’s promotion Monday came after Pete Kwiatkowski surprisingly left Washington in January to take the defensive coordinator position on Steve Sarkisian’s staff at Texas.

Gregory has been Washington’s inside linebackers coach for the past seven seasons. He was previously a defensive coordinator at California from 2002-09 and at Boise State in 2001.

Washington coach Jimmy Lake said he looked outside the program at potential candidates both in college and the NFL but came back to Gregory as the best option.

“It just kept going back to an internal hire that made the most sense,” Lake said. “Our defense has been extremely successful. We definitely didn’t want to bring in just a whole different, brand new defense for our guys to learn. There’s a lot of stability here.”

The position change for Gregory also led to additional changes on the Huskies' staff. Running back coach Keith Bhonapha will add special teams coordinator to his duties, a job Gregory had held since arriving at Washington in 2014.

Ikaika Malloe will move from coaching the defensive line to coaching outside linebackers. Rip Rowan has been promoted from defensive analyst to defensive line coach.

“I always want to be able to promote from within when guys are doing their job and we know that this is going to make us better," Lake said. “You’re always going to see that our quality control coaches or even our GAs, they are working to become that next guy at whatever position it is.”

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