One of the earlier names on the 2018 commit list was Mission Viejo 4-star wideout, Austin Osborne.
Osborne has never wavered in his pledge to Washington, even when his recruiting Coach, Bush Hamdan left for the NFL. Osborne established a close bond with Matt Lubick and was steadfast in his loyalty to Washington.
As we have said many times before, Osborne has been grossly underrated on the recruiting networks, was chided by the Opening selectors, and even the Army All American selectors. Why?
That’s a bigger mystery than where Amelia Earhart’s plane is grounded. It just doesn’t makse sense.
During his junior season, Osborne finished the season with over 900 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns. But this past season his stats weren’t as high — not because he had a bad season either.
Mission Viejo finished with a 12-1 record, and in most games Osborne didn’t even play all four quarters. Kind of hard to pad the stat column when your team is blowing other teams out and you only play half a game.
For whatever reason, the national pundits completely whiffed on Osborne — but is “so over it”, he said.
This past weekend Osborne and his father Jim and mother Trish took their final trip to Seattle as a family, as he prepares to sign his letter on Wednesday — and then enroll after the first of the year.
“I’m so happy”, Osborne said of his decision to be a Husky, “The atmosphere around there is so accepting and so welcoming. This was best weekend of my life.”
As we said, Osborne was saddened by the departure of Hamdan a year ago, but had come to have an extremely close relationship with his position coach, Matt Lubick — so the news of Hamdan’s return was music to Osborne’s ears.
“I remember when it first came out that Coach Smith was leaving, I was going to start a Twitter campaign to bring back Bush”, he said, even though he knows he won’t be returning as a receiver’s coach.
“I get the best of both worlds now with him and Coach Lubick”, Osborne added.
Terrell Bynum hosted Osborne on the official trip, and Alex Cook hosted Osborne’s future teammate, Marquis Spiker. So that group was active all weekend.
They all played laser tag and hung out on Friday night, and on Saturday night most of the recruits went to “hang out” at Jake Browning’s house. In fact, as close as this class of 2018 is, the core players who have been the cement of the group are Spiker, Osborne, and Jacob Sirmon.
“Spiker is like my best friend now”, Osborne said, and the two plan to wreak havoc on the field at Husky Stadium for years to come. Osborne, who will enroll early, hopes to get on the field early as well.
And there’s no reason he won’t.
Osborne is a special kind of talent. He has a super high football IQ and he’s a very physical receiver. He’s like a bigger, faster, and stronger version of Cooper Kupp. He has super soft hands and runs intuitive routes. He just has the uncanny knack to get open.
And let’s face it — if you’re going to compare him to Cooper Cupp, let’s remember that Cupp was also snubbed by the “experts” and now he’s playing for the Rams after earning college All American honors.
He also wears #18.
The network analysts will always say that they base their rankings on how a recruit projects at the NFL level, but how often have they been completely wrong on this? If anything, all it does is put a chip on the shoulder of the players they overlooked and they wind up going off in college (Dante Pettis says Hi).
“I just don’t any attention to that anymore”, Osborne said, “I’m going to a great program and will play for the best coaches in the country. I have nothing to worry about.”
Indeed, Osborne is the perfect fit for Washington. And believe it, he won’t be overlooked ever again once he hits the college football field.
Extra Points:
** On the size of MJ Ale, Osborne said, “He’s the biggest human — I went to shake his hand and his hands were so big they just wrapped right around my entire hand.”
** Osborne is now at 6-3, 195.
** Osborne is signing his letter at 7 AM sharp on Wednesday morning, and there will be a signing ceremony at Mission Viejo High School.
** Since his mother just happens to be the principal at MJHS, Osborne does plan to go back in the spring to take part in commencement exercises at the high school, but will enroll at Washington in February.
All photos courtesy of Jim Osborne
