March 3, 2026, 2:45 p.m. PT
The Washington Huskies will not hire an offensive coordinator for the 2026 season, but according to a report from On3’s Pete Nakos, Jedd Fisch has officially hired longtime coach Matt Cavanaugh to act as a senior offensive analyst.
Cavanaugh began his football career as a quarterback for the Pittsburgh Panthers, where he led his team to the 1976 national championship before spending 14 years as a player in the NFL. He won two Super Bowls as a player before transitioning to coaching, where he’s spent 20 years between college and the NFL.
14 of those seasons have been in various offensive coordinator positions, four of which came at his alma mater of Pittsburgh, the other ten were split between the Baltimore Ravens (where he called plays for the team’s Super Bowl XXXV victory), the Chicago Bears, and the Washington Commanders.
Most recently, Cavanaugh acted as a senior offensive analyst for the New York Jets. Now on Montlake, he won’t have play-calling responsibilities, which will continue to fall to Fisch, but he should fill the role of offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty, who the team parted ways with in mid-February.
“We’re going to bring in a senior assistant that can help with some of the roles of game planning,” Fisch said of Cavanaugh’s role on On3’s Andy and Ari. “I wanted to bring in someone with some new ideas, someone that’s not been a part of our program, someone that can come in with some uniqueness to it.”
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Cavanaugh’s two most recent seasons as an offensive coordinator came with the Commanders in 2017 and 2018, after he spent two seasons as the quarterbacks coach while now-Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay called plays, which should bring that unique perspective that Fisch is looking for.