How Aaron Van Horn, UW’s new assistant coach, earned respect of Huskies

Washington outside linebackers coach Aaron Van Horn attends a press conference, July 29, 2025 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

By Andy Yamashita Seattle Times staff reporter

Aaron Van Horn has never played a snap of college football. 

He has never stood on the line of scrimmage and looked into the eyes of a hulking offensive lineman as he prepared to rush the passer at this level. Never set the edge or dropped into the flat in zone coverage in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans.

“I’ve never taken out a base block in my life,” Van Horn said during the team’s media day July 29. “So the biggest piece is just making sure (the players) trust me and proving that I can make them better.”

Van Horn was promoted to become Washington’s outside linebackers coach in January. When he runs out of the Husky Stadium tunnel as an assistant coach on Jedd Fisch’s staff on Aug. 30 for UW’s season-opener vs. Colorado State, Van Horn will reach a significant milestone in his decade-long climb through the coaching ranks.  

“He’s done a phenomenal job,” fifth-year edge rusher Zach Durfee said July 29. “He demands a lot out of us.” 

Van Horn’s journey started from the very bottom rung of the college football hierarchy. During his freshman year as an undergraduate student at Michigan in 2015, Van Horn — originally from Kingston, Mich. — joined coach Jim Harbaugh’s football program. Not as a highly touted football recruit or even a walk-on player. 

Instead, he became one of the team’s recruiting interns. It was the first of several positions Van Horn held for the Wolverines. He was promoted to student manager in January, 2016, and worked the job until he completed his undergraduate degree in 2019. Van Horn was hired as a Michigan defensive analyst working with linebackers and edge rushers shortly after graduation. 

Van Horn stayed at Michigan for two seasons before joining Fisch’s first staff at Arizona in 2021, initially as a defensive analyst before spending the 2022 and 2023 seasons as a defensive graduate assistant, primarily working with linebackers. Van Horn previously overlapped with Fisch at Michigan, when the current UW coach served as the passing-game coordinator, quarterbacks coach and wide receivers coach during the 2015 and 2016 seasons. 

Current UW defensive line coach and run-game coordinator Jason Kaufusi was also part of those coaching staffs in Tucson, Ariz., serving as Fisch’s edge rushers coach at the time. He recalled being impressed with Van Horn’s dedication early on, and said former Arizona defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Johnny Nansen had nothing but praise for Van Horn’s capabilities. 

“He’s just earned my trust, always doing things the right way,” Kaufusi said Sunday. “And he’s always gotten those guys to play hard.”

In particular, Kaufusi mentioned the work Van Horn did with Jacob Manu at Arizona. The 5-foot-11, 225-pound linebacker was incredibly productive during the two seasons he worked with Van Horn, earning 2023 first-team All-Pac-12 honors and collecting 170 tackles, 13.5 tackles for a loss, 7.5 sacks and an interception in 25 games. 

Van Horn followed Fisch and his staff to Washington before the 2024 season, becoming a defensive quality control analyst and working directly with defensive coordinator Steve Belichick. He was promoted to outside linebackers coach in January, after the NCAA relaxed restrictions about the number of assistants allowed on each coaching staff, allowing Kaufusi to focus solely on defensive tackles while Van Horn handled edge rushers. 

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Few players were as happy about Van Horn’s promotion as Durfee. The veteran edge rusher said he built a strong relationship with Van Horn while rehabbing from his toe injuries a season ago, and said being able to have meetings both as a defensive line unit and just as an edge rusher group allows them to get both a macro and micro perspective of the schemes they are learning. 

Durfee also praised Van Horn’s “detail-oriented” coaching approach. He said any time edge rushers want to come in and talk about defensive schemes or watch film, Van Horn is always willing to clear his schedule. Durfee added that the combination of football knowledge, care and work ethic Van Horn puts into everything the edge rushers do makes it easy to trust his coaching, no matter Van Horn’s personal level of experience. 

“He’s just a workaholic,” Durfee said. “Like nonstop, just trying to figure out things and how we can get better.”

Work ethic, however, is just part of how Van Horn has gone about earning his players’ trust. The young coach said he’s stressed to his edge rushers that he wants this to be a collaborative process. Van Horn’s group is one of the most experienced on the team. His trio of juniors — Isaiah Ward, Russell Davis II and Jacob Lane — have played a combined 63 games between them. Durfee has played in 17 career games dating back to his time at Division II Sioux Falls. 

Senior Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei and sixth-year defensive linemen Deshawn Lynch also occasionally play as edge rushers, too, bringing more experience to the group. 

“It’s nice with those guys because they really just get the game,” Van Horn said. “They’re vets, but also they understand I’m going to work and there’s things I can offer, too, from my background.”

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In particular, Van Horn said some of his past work with inside linebackers has helped him teach some of the coverage principles his edge rushers are learning as part of new defensive coordinator Ryan Walters’ scheme. 

The Huskies have repeatedly practiced with five-player defensive fronts, often sacrificing a defensive back for an extra interior lineman. So the edge rushers are being asked to drop into the flats a little more frequently than a year ago to help cover some of the vacated space. 

“He’s always giving us things to get better at,” Durfee said. 

Van Horn noted that he’s also trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible from the rest of Fisch’s coaching staff. For example, Van Horn said he especially appreciates Kaufusi’s approach to emphasizing fundamentals. 

Perhaps no coach on the staff is a better example for what Van Horn can achieve with his background than Fisch. The Husky coach never played football at any level — he was a standout tennis player as a high school athlete in New Jersey — but rose from a student assistant on Steve Spurrier’s Florida staff to running a Big Ten program of his own at Washington. 

Van Horn made it this far because of his work ethic. He isn’t pretending to be something he’s not. He understands the limitations of his own experience. 

“They understand that I’m working my tail off to make sure they get better and improve as football players,” Van Horn said. “To help them take the next step.”

Andy Yamashita: ayamashita@seattletimes .com. Seattle Times staff reporter Andy Yamashita covers UW football.