Kalen DeBoer is putting together an off-field recruiting staff that’s going to be able to compete with some of the best in the country. Courtney Morgan and Jerret McElwain were a great start, and now he’s added to the group by hiring Spencer Henkle as Washington’s Director of Recruiting. Henkle, who previously was with Oregon as their director of on-campus recruiting, will be a welcome addition to the Husky staff.

Henkle spent one year at Oregon, and helped them build a monster recruiting class before the departure of head coach Mario Cristobal. One of his roles at Oregon (which will be incredibly important moving forward) was to assist in NIL and marketing plans for players currently on the roster, and in this modern age of college football, it’s hard to find many schools that have done a better job of implementing early NIL strategies than Nike U. If Henkle can bring some of his strategies and some of the things he learned during his time in Eugene up to Seattle, Washington’s Montlake Futures program just got a major boost.

Before that, Henkle spent two years as a recruiting analyst at UCLA, where he assisted Chip Kelly in bringing in two classes that ranked in the top 35 nationally. He also worked as a recruiting analyst with Fresno State before getting a shot in the Pac-12, and it seems that he’s risen through the ranks rather quickly.

As the Director of Recruiting, it appears Henkle’s main responsibilities outside of NIL will be talent evaluation. He knows what it takes to run a top-tier recruiting operation, and now it’s time to put some of those strategies into effect at Washington. To take the next step towards the ultimate goal, the Huskies needed to take a page from the enemy’s playbook, and hiring Henkle is a great acquisition for the future of the program.