TUSCALOOSA — Three days after news of both hires leaked, Alabama officially announced its two assistant football coaching jobs were filled Wednesday evening.

Washington offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier took the same job in Tuscaloosa in succession of new Colorado State head coach Jim McElwain.

Lance Thompson replaces Sal Sunseri as the Crimson Tide outside linebackers coach. Thompson, twice an Alabama assistant previously, returns from Tennessee where Sunseri was hired as defensive coordinator last Friday.

The dueling Alabama news releases distributed Wednesday followed the hiring of Nussmeier’s replacement at Washington. The Huskies introduced Eric Kiesau as its offensive coordinator several hours before the formalities were complete at Alabama.

“I’m looking forward to jumping right in with recruiting and then getting to know the players and everyone involved with the program,” Nussmeier said in a news release. Neither he, nor Thompson was made available for any further comment.

He comes to Alabama with a reputation of developing top passers. All three of his years at Washington included coaching the quarterbacks while the offensive coordinator tag was added to his responsibilities before the 2010 season.

Jake Locker, the eighth pick of the 2011 NFL draft, spent two seasons in Nussmeier’s system rewriting program passing records. Before that, Nussmeier was the St. Louis Rams’ quarterback coach in 2006 when Marc Bulger made his second Pro Bowl.

At Michigan State from 2003-05, Nussmeier helped develop Drew Stanton whose 3,415 yards in 2005 broke the single-season record set by Jeff Smoker, also coached by Nussmeier.

A quarterback himself at Idaho, Nussmeier is one of six college quarterbacks to throw for 10,000 yards and run for another 1,000. He won the Walter Payton Award, the FCS equivalent to the Heisman, in 1993.

For Thompson, the hiring was his third at Alabama and third under Saban.

He was a member of the 2007 and ’08 Tide coaching staffs before leaving to coach the Vol linebackers before the 2009 season. He led the defensive line last fall.

Thompson first coached in Tuscaloosa from 1999-2000 as the defensive line coach. He then went to Georgia Tech for a year before joining Saban’s staff at LSU for two seasons as the tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator. From 2004-06, he was the defensive coordinator at Central Florida before returning for his second term under Saban, this time at Alabama.

Perhaps his greatest contribution in those two seasons came on the recruiting trail. He was credited for landing Mark Barron, Julio Jones, Robert Lester, Jerrell Harris and Trent Richardson. Rivals.com named him the national recruiter of the year in 2008.

His departure of Lane Kiffin’s first and only Tennessee staff in 2009 created well-publicized tension between Thompson and Saban.

“He ain’t getting any more of my (recruits),” Thompson told a Vol booster club meeting soon after his arrival, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported.

His tone was different Wednesday.

“As a defensive coach, it doesn’t get any better,” Thompson said in the university-issued news release. “I look forward to doing my part in helping maintain the success coach Saban has brought back to the program. The tradition and history at Alabama is like no other place in the country when it comes to college football and this is a special time to be a part of that.”

Saban said Thompson relates well with the players, a notion Tennessee defensive lineman Ben Martin backed up while speaking with reporters in Knoxville back in September.

“He’s a very cool guy, a very calm guy,” Martin said. “I like that about him a lot. It’s more about figuring about what (the opposition) is doing and making adjustments.”