Inside The Huskies

Austin Mack Becomes First Former Husky to Transfer to Alabama

The freshman quarterback will be reunited with offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb.

Dan Raley

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Quarterback Austin Mack becomes the first University of Washington football player to follow Kalen DeBoer's coaching staff to Alabama and he probably won't be the last.

On Thursday, the 6-foot-6, 226-pound Mack — just 17 and considered a building-block player for the future for whomever he played — revealed on social media he has committed to join the Crimson Tide just 10 days after the DeBoer-led Huskies played Michigan for the national championship.

It was thought all along that Mack, who's from Loomis, California, and Folsom High School, would end up at Alabama after entering the transfer portal.

After all, he had reclassified to graduate early from Folsom to accelerate his development as a college quarterback at the UW under offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who unsuccessfully tried to become DeBoer's UW successor before moving to Alabama.

Mack didn't appear in any games for the Huskies this past season, but he received plenty of practice opportunities to run the No. 1 offense, especially in fall camp when starter Michael Penix Jr. came down with a sore arm and needed to rest for a week.

It was interesting watching UW warm-ups for the two College Football Playoff games against Texas and Michigan and observe Mack stand next to Penix and threw when he threw, and practically do whatever the older signal-caller did in a synchronized manner.

"He's been great," Mack said of his Husky QB mentor at the Sugar Bowl. "He's really helped me out. He's someone I look up to a lot and I kind of sit behind him and I watch how he operates."

Mack will join a quarterback position group headed up by 6-foot-2, 220-pound junior Jalen Milroe from Katy, Texas, who became the Alabama starter in the second game this past season. Mack has four seasons of eligibility remaining with the SEC team. 

While Mack's intentions became known, news circulated that former UW starting center Parker Brailsford would be visiting Alabama soon.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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