How former Husky Rashaan Shehee helped set another running back — Tybo Rogers — on a path to Seattle

Rashaan Shehee passed the UW football running back baton.

But first, the Bakersfield, Calif., native had to go home.

A former standout at Foothill High School, Shehee signed with Washington in 1993 and accumulated 2,150 rushing yards, 5.6 yards per carry and 28 touchdowns across the next five seasons — surpassing 1,000 total yards in 1995 (1,140 yards, 15 TD) and 1997 (1,008 yards, 9 TD). He was selected in the third round of the 1998 NFL draft by the Kansas City Chiefs and contributed 504 total yards and a touchdown in 25 career games.

After closing the book on his football career, Shehee moved back to Bakersfield and started teaching health at Bakersfield High School in 2001.

Tybo Rogers arrived nearly 20 years later.

“I wasn’t coaching football [in 2019]. I was coaching girls basketball, and everybody was telling me about this kid Tybo. He was a freshman,” Shehee told The Times last week. “I wasn’t even going to football games or anything. I was like, ‘Let me go check this kid out.’ So I went out there. He touched the ball five times and scored four touchdowns.”

Perhaps Shehee saw some of himself.

And two years later, the former UW running back was appointed offensive coordinator, a move he specifically made with Rogers in mind. Shehee said Rogers “was really the reason why I started coaching and got back into ball. I wanted to help mold him, because I believed he could play at the next level.”

Specifically, at running back.

“Once I decided I was going to start coaching, I sat down with him and his dad and the very first thing I said was: ‘I’m going to be offensive coordinator. If I’m going to do this, you’re going to be my running back,’” Shehee said. “He had played [slot] receiver all that time. They trusted me, trusted my judgment. I just had to show him that he could play that position and that it would make him more of a threat.”

Rogers was so much of a threat, in fact, that he amassed 1,246 rushing yards, 614 receiving yards and 17 total touchdowns as a junior in 2021 (before missing much of his senior season with a shoulder injury). Shehee — who was eventually appointed the Drillers’ head coach — compared his tackle-breaking, pass-catching pupil to “kind of like a Deebo Samuel. That’s lovely for an offensive coordinator, to take a guy and start him in the backfield, shift him outside. Now it’s a mismatch nightmare for defenses.”

Rogers was ranked as a three-star recruit and the No. 47 running back in the nation by 247Sports. The 5-foot-11, 192-pounder (whose size is essentially identical to Shehee’s freshman season in Seattle) earned offers from the likes of Arizona, Boston College, Cal, Colorado, Fresno State, Oregon State, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington State … and Washington.

“Of course I wanted him to go to Washington, just the bias in me,” Shehee said with a laugh. “But I was also very open with him, that I wanted him to find a good spot for him. I actually didn’t want him to commit as early as he did, but by that point he was a little bit tired of the recruiting process and wanted to be done with it, and he loved what he saw out of Washington.”

On March 7, 2022, Rogers became Kalen DeBoer’s first commit in the 2023 class.

And since enrolling early last winter, Washington’s coaches and players have loved what they’ve seen out of Rogers as well.

“To be completely honest, you might have to give that to the freshman, Tybo,” UW junior Daniyel Ngata said last spring, when asked to name the Huskies’ fastest running back. “He’s moving pretty good. You’ve got to tell him to slow down, too, sometimes. He’s really moving.”

Added offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb in April: “Tybo’s had a really good spring ball already. So he’s shown a lot of flashes. I think he’s a guy who could potentially help us this year.”

Which is an audacious claim, considering the competition. This offseason, Rogers joined a running back room stacked with six proven contributors: senior Richard Newton, junior Mississippi State transfer Dillon Johnson, junior Arizona State transfer Ngata, junior Cameron Davis (the team leader with 13 rushing touchdowns in 2022) and sophomores Sam Adams II and Will Nixon.

Together, they’ll aim to improve an offense that finished fifth in the Pac-12 in rushing touchdowns (33) and seventh in yards per carry (4.76) in 2022. Still, those numbers might actually be deceptive for UW — which erupted for 656 rushing yards, 6.91 yards per carry and 10 rushing touchdowns in its last three games.

Like Shehee — who redshirted in 1993 — Rogers might have to wait his turn three decades later.

But according to the former, he won’t wait long.

“It’s a beautiful thing for me. I couldn’t ask for anything more,” Shehee said, when asked about another Bakersfield running back resurfacing in Seattle. “When he said he was going to commit to Washington, I was overjoyed. I know the long history of running backs that have gone through the program — from Greg Lewis, Leon Neal, Napoleon Kauffman, Corey Dillon. These are all phenomenal guys, and Tybo’s going to do extremely well and put his name in the ranks, too.

“He’s serious about the game. He loves the game of football. He studies it. He wants to go play on Sundays, and I believe that he will.”