Rome Odunze: Seahawks ‘getting a dog’ in new OC Ryan Grubb
Feb 22, 2024, 11:04 AM | Updated: 11:09 am
The football landscape in Seattle has changed dramatically over the last two months as the Seattle Seahawks and UW Huskies both enter new eras.
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The Seahawks parted ways with Pete Carroll after 14 years and hired Mike Macdonald. After losing the National Championship Game, the Huskies lost head coach Kalen DeBoer to Alabama on top of most of the starting 2023 roster to the NFL Draft and transfer portal.
One of those top UW players from a year ago is receiver Rome Odunze, an All-American who is considered by many to be a top-10 pick in this April’s draft.
Odunze joined Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Thursday and discussed what the last month has been like with UW football from his perspective, and he also dove into his former offensive coordinator now calling plays for the Seahawks.
“For me, it’s been chaos. For them, I think it’s in the same ballpark,” Odunze said. “At the same time with all this chaos, it’s not like (the coaches) didn’t end up in good positions, you know? I feel like the coaching staff as a whole dispersed and all ended up in pretty solid positions where they feel comfortable. Who knows if they continue to change or if that’s possible. I don’t know. But right now it seems like people are comfortable with it. The whole initial staff leaving, it definitely hurt just because I knew it was a great staff and I want the success for UW, of course, so to see them leave hurt a little bit.”
Odunze said he “didn’t have any sense” that DeBoer would be leaving Washington for Alabama or that the entire coaching staff would be gone.
“It kind of took me out of left field just like everybody else,” he said.
But what happened to UW also is a result of the team going 25-3 over the past two seasons.
“It is a little bit expected that other programs were going to be like, ‘Hey, how are they doing that? OK, let’s go get this guy,'” Odunze said. “And the transfer portal and the coaching carousel, that’s college football. If you’re a fan of college football, I think you’re gonna have to adapt to some of that craziness that happens every single year because it’s almost every single year now where something crazy has happened and a coach you never expected to leave is leaving … It’s part of the story now and part of the drama of it all.”
Ryan Grubb, new Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator
One result of the turnover with the Seahawks and Huskies is that Ryan Grubb is the new offensive coordinator for Seattle after two stellar years running Washington’s offense.
Odunze was a key part of Grubb’s scheme at UW, and he shared his insight into the Seahawks’ new play-caller.
“Man, I will say y’all are getting a dog. And I know a lot of people will describe a player as that with that mindset and mentality, but to me that’s exactly what Grubb is, man,” he said. ” rubb is the type of guy, he’s out-preparing everybody to the fullest, outpreparing everyone each week in his opponents, making sure that he’s leaving no detail behind.”
Grubb is someone the Seahawks and their fans “can be super proud of.”
“I really think that they’re gonna go over there and have a lot of success, especially with the tremendous receivers and quarterback as well that they have over there,” Odunze said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s a pass-friendly, explosive, explosive gameplan, for sure, going in week to week. He’s a guy who is not going to let y’all down and he’s gonna work his ass off to make it happen.”
Listen to Brock & Salk’s full interview with Rome Odunze at this link or in the player near the top of this story.
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