Dominique
Hampton.
Dominique
Hampton.
Washington· 6'2"· 215 lb· 4.51s 40
"A six-year Husky who spent four of those seasons on special teams, then tackled his way onto every draft board with 109 stops during a run to the national championship game."Pre-draft read
Hampton is a big-bodied deep-third safety who worked best from depth in Washington's split-safety shells, reading the quarterback's front shoulder and driving on anything in front of him. At 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds he tackles like a linebacker in space, wrapping through the near hip instead of lunging.
The second trait is trigger on run fits: he leaves 12 yards of depth in a hurry and fills the alley with weight behind his pads. In coverage he is a zone processor who passes routes off cleanly but stiffens when asked to turn and run in man. Long-strider speed chases plays sideline to sideline; the signature is sheer tackle volume from the back end.
Split-safety zone defense that keeps him at depth in Cover 2 and quarters and lets him rotate down as an extra run defender on early downs.
Year 1: kick and punt coverage ace with third-safety snaps in big nickel. Ceiling: two-down box starter who plays the alley.
Man-heavy Cover 1 scheme that assigns him to slot receivers or moves him into the nickel, where his transition speed gets exposed.
He is a run-support safety asked to cover, not a cover safety asked to tackle.
Dominique Hampton | Safety | Washington | 2023 Highlights
Full 2023 season reel from his lone year as a full-time starting safety.
Dominique Hampton | 7 | Washington Huskies Safety
Cut-ups of alley fills, open-field tackling and deep-zone reps.
Football: Dom Hampton
Washington feature on his move to safety and role in the 2023 defense.
A six-year Husky who did not become a full-time starter until his fifth season, Hampton is a downhill safety first and a coverage defender second. His football identity is contact: he plays the alley, sorts out crossers by feel more than by technique, and treats every completion in front of him as a chance to end the drive on the spot.
The production arrived late but it arrived loudly. After four seasons as a special teamer and rotational body, he started 10 games in 2022 and then every game of Washington's 2023 run to the national title game, leading the team with 109 tackles, adding two interceptions and seven breakups, and posting 10 stops against Michigan in the championship. The flags were the age (he turned 24 as a rookie), the thin ball-production history before that final year, and the recurring evidence that man coverage against slot receivers exposes his change of direction.
Boards had him in the fifth-to-sixth-round band as a special teams core piece with a path to a third-safety job. The 4.51 forty at 215 pounds gave him a real athletic floor and Washington's staff took the swing at 161, betting a rebuilt secondary could develop the traits behind Kamren Curl's and Kendall Fuller's departures.
- 01
Tackle finisher
Plays through the ball carrier's hip with real pop, closing 109 tackles in 2023 without the arm-tackle misses that plague big safeties in space.
- 02
Downhill trigger
Diagnoses run action from depth quickly and fills the alley with weight behind his pads, arriving as a force defender rather than a sideline shepherd.
- 03
Zone processing
Reads the quarterback in split-safety looks, passes crossers off cleanly and keeps his depth over the top instead of jumping the first thing he sees.
- 04
Size-speed floor
A 4.51 forty at 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds gives him legitimate chase range and the frame teams want on core special teams from day one.
- 05
Big-game temperament
Delivered his best tape on the biggest stage, including 10 stops in the national championship against Michigan's downhill run game.
- 01
Man coverage limits
Tight hips and a long stride make him late out of transition; slot receivers and tight ends with quickness win on the break against him.
- 02
Late bloomer profile
Four seasons of backup and special teams work before he started, so the body of evaluable starting tape is essentially one and a half years.
- 03
Age relative to class
He turned 24 during his rookie year, which compresses the developmental runway teams normally grant a Day 3 defensive back.
- 04
Thin ball production
Two career interceptions and 16 breakups over 57 games; he tackles the catch far more often than he takes the ball away.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.51sp50
- Vertical
- 39inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.83sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.14sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Washington | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Washington | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Washington | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Washington | 11 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 2022 | Washington | 12 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 2023 | Washington | 15 | 109 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 0 |
| Career | — | 57 | 190 | 0 | 2 | 16 | 0 |
Season splits 2020-2023 verified on cfbstats (bowls and CFP included). 2018-2019 games from footballdb participation logs; individual defensive splits for those two reserve years are not published, so they are left null rather than zero-filled. Official Washington career totals (57 G, 190 tackles, 2 INT, 16 PD, 1 FR) exceed the verified 2020-2023 sum (182 tackles, 13 PD) by exactly the unpublished 2018-2019 production.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Honorable Mention All-Pac-12 (2023)
- CFP National Championship starter (2023)
- Team-leading 109 tackles (2023)
Late-round tackling safety whose value lives on coverage units while he bounces between rosters.
The best version: an oversized safety who found a home as a box-and-alley starter after years as a special teamer.
Athletic Day 3 safety who never converts special teams reps into a defensive role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Washington kept him as a developmental piece and quickly moved him off safety, listing him as a linebacker to chase his size and special teams value. He appeared in one game as a rookie in 2024, spent most of the year inactive, and never carved out a coverage role. The Commanders released him in August 2025, and Chicago claimed him later that season when a run of linebacker injuries thinned their depth. He stuck around the fringe of that roster, then was waived by the Bears in June 2026 before catching on with Tennessee on a one-year deal for the 2026 season.
In hindsight, the evaluation was right about the player and wrong about the position. The tackling and the temperament were real, but a converted safety who cannot cover man and does not take the ball away needs to be a special teams ace immediately to survive, and Hampton never locked down that job either. The 2023 tape was a one-year sample built on volume and on Washington's defense funneling work to him, not on traits that translated. A fifth-round pick on that profile is a defensible swing; the outcome is a journeyman.
Data note: Season splits 2020-2023 verified on cfbstats (bowls and CFP included). 2018-2019 games from footballdb participation logs; individual defensive splits for those two reserve years are not published, so they are left null rather than zero-filled. Official Washington career totals (57 G, 190 tackles, 2 INT, 16 PD, 1 FR) exceed the verified 2020-2023 sum (182 tackles, 13 PD) by exactly the unpublished 2018-2019 production.