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Huskies offensive coordinator fired after loss to Ducks

SEATTLE — A day after the University of Washington Huskies’ football team was beaten by their rival the Oregon Ducks 26-16, head coach Jimmy Lake announced that offensive coordinator John Donovan has been fired, according to a release from the university.

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Donovan, a former offensive coordinator for Penn State and Vanderbilt, joined UW staff in January 2010 and also worked for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ coaching staff the previous four seasons.

Junior Adams, the wide receivers coach, will assume Donovan’s duties for the remainder of the season. Payton McCollum, the offensive quality control analyst, was promoted to quarterbacks coach.

Adams joined UW in 2019 as wide receivers coach and spent the two previous seasons as offensive coordinator and receivers coast at Western Kentucky, according to the UW.

McCollum joined the UW in 2020 and had worked at North Carolina Central, North Carolina, the Detroit Lions and Campbell.

In last night’s game, Washington had no first downs in the first quarter and went three-and-out six times. Weather conditions were awful, but the lack of potency and consistency from the offense has been a problem all year and has left the Huskies in the position of needing to win two of its last three games to become bowl eligible.

“So frustrating. You have a team like that on the ropes in our stadium and all those big plays that we’re making, the defensive stops that we’re making,” Lake said. “Extremely frustrating.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.