Inside The Huskies

Breaking Down the UW's 5 Portal Players and Their Starting Chances

These five new Huskies bring an assortment of football talent and experience.

Dan Raley

Breaking Down the UW's 5 Portal Players and Their Starting Chances
Breaking Down the UW's 5 Portal Players and Their Starting Chances /

They put away the maize and blue helmet, the football hat with Rams horns on it, the Brian Bosworth jersey number, the maroon shirt with white shoulder stripes and the all-black uniform ensemble.

Over the past four months, five players joined the University of Washington football team as transfer-portal newcomers, accepting scholarships previously earmarked for high-school or junior-college recruits. 

They're proven talent, reinforcements for a pair of UW position rooms — wide receivers and quarterbacks — thinned down by portal defectors, and compensation for yet a third area hit hard by injuries that needed another edge-rusher.

Giles Jackson, Patrick O'Brien, Jeremiah Martin, Ja'Lynn Polk and Bookie Radley-Hiles,

Four of them have logged 21 spring and fall practices while Jackson enrolled this summer and has just a half-dozen Seattle workouts this month to his name.

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They've shaken up the way UW football does things by putting numbers 0 and 44 into service. One digit ran counter to the rules, one was retired. The other newcomers answer to 3, 10 and 12.

They all come from schools in the middle of the country, from Michigan, Colorado State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Oklahoma, most of them blue-blood programs.

With the season opener just three and a half weeks away, we look at the progress of these transfers as Huskies and the likelihood of how much each should play.

Giles Jackson

A 4.43-second sprinter in the 40-yard dash, Jackson felt pigeon-holed as a kick returner only at Michigan. He scored on returns of 95 and 97 yards. Yet he wants to go long distance as a pass receiver, too.

In his first week with the Huskies, the speedy California native lined up with the second offensive unit. He ran the fly sweep. He tried to run past the secondary and a catch home-run balls.

Unlike the Big Ten school that had him, the Huskies will think up more ways to use this explosive talent and try to get Jackson in the end zone. However, he's still likely a second-teamer called on for special assignments.

Patrick O'Brien

After quarterbacking stints at Colorado State and Nebraska, O'Brien will serve as a UW spare tire. The sixth-year player might not get used at all, but he'll be stored in the trunk just in case.

He gives the Huskies that prototypical tall quarterback they've pursued in the past. However, he won't supplant starter Dylan Morris and should see freshman sensation Sam Huard used more and more as QB-2. 

O'Brien might not get on the field unless Morris and Huard both get banged up.

Jeremiah Martin

A fifth-year player from Texas A&M, Martin hasn't started a college game yet after subbing in and playing special teams. That routine might not change in Seattle either. 

While he's come to a position of need following the career-ending injury to Laiatu Lutu and the temporary loss of Zion Tupuola-Fetui, the 6-foot-3, 270-pound California native finds himself in a position room teeming with promising young linebackers in Sav'ell Smalls, Bralen Trice and Cooper McDonald. 

Martin has been rotating in and out of the lineup with everyone else, but he might have to settle for a backup role. 

Ja'Lynn Polk

The Texas Tech defector came up with 28 receptions for 264 yards and a pair of touchdowns as a true freshman, demonstrating his explosiveness by going 60 yards to score against TCU.

He started for his Big 12 school and could easily play himself into the UW lineup. He brings toughness and speed to the position. Yet for now, he's running with the second unit and may have to settle for that.

Bookie Radley-Hiles

A three-year starter for the Sooners, this nickelback has star quality written all over him. He supplied quite possibly the play of the spring so far when he dove and tipped a pass in the air, and caught the deflection himself, as shown in the above video.

Of this UW fivesome, he's the most likely to start and the one with the most starts (32) at his previous destination. He's a playmaker and should thrive while teaming with cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Kyler Gordon as coverage guys. 

Out of the five transfers, the Huskies likely picked up an instant starter in Radley-Hiles, three backups for now and likely a third quarterback. 

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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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