The Huskies seemed out of it during the spring, but that hometown love and great effort by the entire coaching staff at UW brought it back full circle. Sav’ell Smalls has committed to Washington.
Alabama, Florida State, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington State were all finalists for Smalls.
This is absolutely huge news for Washington, and puts them ahead of Oregon in the Pac-12 recruiting rankings.
Even though Washington head coach Chris Petersen would never promise any player a starting spot, I guarantee you that Smalls has the “it” factor to walk into fall camp next summer and earn a starting spot.
This is a breaking story and we will have more soon — but this has to be the biggest commitment in terms of the turn-around that took place, the fact that Smalls is an extremely elite, national athlete, and it is Chris Petersen’s signature commit.
A lot of people know about Smalls’ defensive prowess and his linebacker skills, but he was also an all league wide out last year on offense at Garfield — that’s called freaky athleticism.
Can you say fast twitch?
The back-story on this is that the coaches learned that Smalls would be making his announcement today during the Under Armuor All American Bowl jersey presentation at Kennedy Catholic High School.
A source tells me that once the Husky coaches knew they had their coveted outside linebacker, they no longer needed to recruit California linebacker, Jordan Banks.
The Washington coaches were recruiting Banks to play outside linebacker, not inside — and so Smalls filled that spot on the class roster.
Realdawg.com has always reported that Banks was being recruited to play outside.
This Smalls news is absolutely poignant due to the Husky coaches’ continued efforts to keep the state’s best player at home. It wasn’t just one coach who stayed committed to Smalls’ recruitment; it was a group effort.
This is Chris Petersen’s first 5-star — and the journey Smalls went through to wind up coming back home is a back-story in itself.
At the end of the day, with projected nine defensive starters returning in 2020 and the addition of Smalls, the Huskies’ chance at a national title run just got better…
