Ex-Huskies assistants eye WSU job

Two former Washington assistant football coaches are among the top choices to fill a staff vacancy at Washington State created when tight-ends coach and recruiting coordinator Robin Pflugrad left the Cougars for Oregon last week.

WSU is in the process of trimming a list of candidates to about four by next week.

Scott Pelluer, 46, a former WSU and NFL linebacker, expressed interest in the job Friday. Steve Axman, 57, also is known to have interest. Both worked at Washington, most recently on the staff of Keith Gilbertson that was fired in November 2004.

"I'd love to go back to my alma mater if I could," said Pelluer, who last fall helped on the staff at Skyline High School as it won the Class 4A state championship.

Pelluer worked during both of Gilbertson's years as head coach at UW, assigned to tight ends and special teams. He also worked under Jim Lambright at UW from 1996 to 1998, coaching linebackers and safeties.

Pelluer played linebacker for WSU from 1977 to 1980.

The well-traveled Axman has worked at 10 different colleges, including two stints at both Washington and UCLA. He was head coach at Northern Arizona from 1990 to 1997, with Pelluer as his offensive-line coach the first two seasons.

Axman was on Rick Neuheisel's UW staff from 1999 to 2002, primarily as quarterbacks coach.

Mike Levenseller, WSU offensive coordinator, has been doing most of the legwork on the opening for coach Bill Doba. Levenseller indicated the recruiting-coordinator responsibility might override the need for a coach with experience coaching tight ends.

"The recruiting coordinator side of it is such a huge job," Levenseller said. "If it came down to the particular position, George [Yarno, offensive-line coach] and I can handle that together. When I first came here [in 1992], he handled tight ends for the run game and I did it for the passing game."

Meanwhile, WSU running-backs coach Kelly Skipper was a finalist for the running-backs coach job for the New Orleans Saints, a position filled Friday by George Henshaw.