Under Kalen DeBoer, Washington’s turnaround on the field, more then reversed the 4-8 record the season before his arrival, posting an 11-2 record in his first season. It also appears to be reversing the direction that recruiting was headed.
Speaking with dozens of players in the 2023 and 2024 recruiting classes the genuine love they feel from DeBoer and company sounds very familiar.
Words like “brotherhood”, “family”, and “love”, make the calls with recruits virtually indistinguishable from what Petersen’s recruits would say.
“Under Chris Petersen, the strength of the program wasn’t necessarily in recruiting the best player out there but finding guys that that fit into their scheme and into the family,” said RealDawg.com high school recruiting analyst, Trevor Mueller.
Although It took a bit of time to transition from players from the Steve Sarkisian-era personnel who were developed into great players, great teammates, and better men.
But Chris Petersen spoke about how he was surprised with how long it took to get the payoff with a playoff appearance.
“Superior development of the players was Petersen’s hallmark. But so was identifying characteristics in recruits that other teams ignored,” said RealDawg.com’s lead scout Trevor Mueller. “Will Dissly, Greg Gaines, Taylor Rapp, Myles Bryant…”
The list goes on, but it was when Petersen was able to reach in and grab the players by their hearts that when the trajectory of the program.
“As recruits began to see the results, particularly the 2016 appearance in the College Football Playoffs, UW’s recruiting rankings rose,” continued Mueller.
DeBoer and Co. inherited many of those players who had an impact of the immediate reversal this past season. Now they’re beginning to see the benefit of 11 wins.
And it starts with a prized QB recruit from Folsom, California.
“Many recruits they are looking at who’s hot,” Muller said “Recruiting is often a heat check for the state of a program. To get to 11 wins in their first go-round will speak to recruits in ways no coach can.”
The payoff for the 2016 recruiting class was supposed to be the 2018 recruiting class. While, half of the class never made it to the full term of their eligibility many were still contributors from that class this season.
In Chris Petersen’s 2nd year he signed 28 players. On paper, at the time, it wasn’t an impressive class but as it turned out it was a foundational class. It was headlined by Jake Browning but it also featured Myles Gaskin, Trey Adams, Ben Burr-Kirven, Ezekiel Turner, Andre Baccelia, Benning Potoa’e and Jordan Miller. All have had stints in the NFL. That the class beat its rating of 27th overall.
The following year the class that signed in February of 2016 signed before Petersen led the Huskies to the College Football Playoffs. That class was ranked just 30th in the nation because it was a smaller class size but it was replete with quality. Eight of the 17 players signed made it to the league: Byron Murphy, Camilio Eifler, Brandon Wellington, Luke Wattenberg, Levi Onwuzurike, Taylor Rapp, Nick Harris and Aaron Fuller.
The 22nd rated class in 2017 had 18 players in it with half being rated 4 stars. Upon closer inspection further down the list are four 3-star players: Alex Cook, Jaxson Kirkland, Cade Otton, and Jake Haene. Included in the 18 players is Ali Gaye who never made it onto campus and is a top defensive prospect now with LSU.
There was steady improvement in the team’s overall rating as the Huskies signed the 16th best class in the country. The top 3 (Marquis Spiker, Colson Yankoff, and Jacob Sirmon) didn’t pan out for the Huskies but Tuli Letuligasenoa, Julius Irvin, Matteo Mele, Devin Culp, Richard Newton, Victor Curne, Zion Tupuola-Fetui, Ulumoo Ale, and Dominique Hampton have all contributed at Washington.
Projecting Washington’s success in recruiting this next recruiting class m, based upon interviews with recruits says that Washington will have its best class in years.
How high can they go? Time will tell that story, but a top 15 class appears to be likely.
