Jan. 29, 2026, 10:02 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Notre Dame<\/a> linebackers coach Al Washington has been hired by the Miami Dolphins<\/a>, filling a vacancy under new head coach Jeff Hafley. The two worked together at Ohio State<\/a> when Hafley was the co-defensive coordinator and Washington was the Buckeyes’ linebackers coach. Washington is expected to be the Dolphins’ linebackers coach as well.<\/p>\n Washington has had a vast coaching career in college football, beginning in 2008 as a graduate assistant at NC State. He then held roles at Elon, Boston College, Cincinnati, Michigan and Ohio State before landing at Notre Dame as the defensive line coach from 2022-2023. He was then elevated to run game coordinator as well as retaining his position as the defensive line coach from 2023-2025.<\/p>\n With Washington as a key contributor in game-planning and coordinating against the run game, the Fighting Irish<\/a> were stout in 2025, finishing 10th in the nation in scoring (17.6 points) and 11th against the run (100.1 yards).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Miami struggled mightily defensively a season ago, likely a big reason they fired offensive-minded head coach Mike McDaniel and hired Hafley, who was the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n Washington will hope to elevate the linebackers amongst a Dolphins unit that finished 24th in points allowed and 27th in run defense.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Contact\/Follow@College_Wire<\/a>\u00a0on X and@College_Wires<\/a>\u00a0on Threads. Like our page on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of college sports news, notes, and opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 29, 2026, 10:02 p.m. ET Notre Dame linebackers coach Al Washington has been hired by the Miami…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2049],"tags":[95878,217,7,216,251,2087,6,102328,96940,95882,95930,96152,96027,95893,96088,95906,95884,95883,95881],"class_list":["post-715668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami-dolphins","tag-accessfree","tag-dolphins","tag-football","tag-miami","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-miamidolphins","tag-nfl","tag-sstssportscollegecollege-football","tag-sstsncollege-football","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","tag-tagcollege-football","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagfacebook","tag-tagnotre-dame-fighting-irish-football","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsports-coaching-training","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115982209591399876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}