Former UW Quarterback Ethan Garbers Returns to Face the Huskies

The UCLA offensive leader spent the 2020 season as a reserve in Montlake.

UCLA quarterback Ethan Garbers, the former UW player, directs traffic against Nebraska early in the season. / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

If not for the COVID pandemic, Jimmy Lake, John Donovan, Dylan Morris, Sam Huard and maybe even a little homesickness, Ethan Garbers could be the University of Washington starting quarterback facing UCLA on Friday night at Husky Stadium -- not the other way around.

While that's a tall order, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound Garbers from Newport Beach, California, was a Husky signal-caller for seven months back in 2020 before entering the transfer portal right around Christmas and heading home to the Bruins.

Garbers, after watching two previous games play out against the UW, brings UCLA (4-5 overall, 3-4 Big Ten) into Montlake riding a three-game win streak and himself finally settled in as the Bruins' No. 1 quarterback and a team captain.

"Ethan Garbers is playing really good the past couple weeks, especially the last six quarters," UW coach Jedd Fisch said. "He's played really well."

In eight games, Garbers has completed 162 of 250 passes for 1,906 yards and 12 touchdowns, with 11 interceptions. Notably, he threw for a career-high 383 yards in UCLA’s 35-32 win at Rutgers a month ago.

In his Bruins career, he's played in 37 games, started 15 of them, and connected on 317 of 484 pases for 3,641 yards and 27 TDs, with 18 interceptions.

“This one might be just a little sweeter for him [Garbers' obviously, a place that he came from," redshirt senior wide receiver Logan Loya told the The Daily Bruin. "There should be a little chip on your shoulder when it comes to this type of stuff.”

Who knows what might have happened had Garbers never left. He could have become the full-time starter at the UW sooner than he did at UCLA, might have won more games than Morris did with the Huskies and probably would have backed up Michael Penix Jr. for the time being just like everyone else did, from Morris to 5-star prospect Huard.

Quarterback Ethan Garbers takes off running during a UW practice in 2020. / UW

Garbers lost out in a four-man UW quarterback competition in 2020 that involved holdover Jacob Sirmon, Sacramento State transfer Kevin Thomson and Morris, with the latter then a redshirt freshman and becoming the UW starter for what would be just four games as the pandemic disrupted everything back then.

Morris spent two seasons as the Husky starter before serving as Penix's back-up for two more and transferring to James Madison, where he's appeared in just four games and thrown a solitary pass for the 7-2 Sun Belt team this fall as he completes his college football career.

Sirmon would leave, as well, joining Central Michigan and Northern Colorado, where he would have limited success as a starter in the MAC and the Big Sky, finishing up in 2023.

Thomson, who was the 2019 Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year and originally began at UNLV, was said to be the winner of that four-man Husky quarterback competition before he suffered a late injury that prevented from playing and the job went to Morris. Thomson next passed up a COVID allowance year to return to the UW in 2021 and has bounced around pro football, getting released from the practice squad for the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats this past summer.

Bruins quarterback Ethan Garbers incredibly threw a touchdown pass on this play under pressure from USC safety Jaylin Smith in 2023. / Jason Parkhurst-Imagn Images

Garbers left the UW shortly after being named the Scout Team MVP at the team awards banquet in December. He no doubt departed Montlake because Donovan's pro-style offense wasn't drawing raves from anyone and led to the offensive coordinator getting fired midway through the 2021 season -- three weeks after UCLA played and beat the Huskies 24-17 in Seattle, with Garbers not stirring from the sideline.

The quarterback also watched as the back-up to Dorian Thompson-Robinson when Kalen DeBoer, the fired Lake's coaching replacement, brought the Huskies to the Rose Bowl to face UCLA in 2022 and lost 40-32.

On Friday night, Garbers most likely will have to play against the UW in the shivering cold and the rain, telling himself he made the right decision all along to return to the more QB-friendly climate of Southern California.

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