Inside The Huskies

Here's Why Odunze Is Having a Better Spring Than Anyone Else

The Husky wide receiver has been challenged to not hold back.

Dan Raley

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Some people in the past have suggested Rome Odunze isn't fast enough to be an elite receiver. Hardly strong enough. Not a first-round draft pick.

Yet anyone who has witnessed any of the University of Washington's 10 spring football practices so far, wouldn't dare go down that road or risk being laughed out of Husky Stadium.

The junior from Las Vegas clearly has upped his game in every facet — speed, size and desire — to the point he's had a better camp than any of his 100-plus Husky teammates.

On Wednesday, UW receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard confirmed that Odunze's football goals for this coming and final college season for him have been set at a very high level. 

"I told him that he's 217 pounds and he better play like he's a 217-pound receiver," said Shephard, presumably intimating that his top pass-catcher is a heavyweight. "He wants to win the Biletnikoff Award and he wants to push the envelope. We talk about those things. What it takes to win that award."

Rome Odunze, Ja'Lynn Polk and Germie Bernard hang together inside Dempsey Indoor.
Rome Odunze, Ja'Lynn Polk and Germie Bernard, in that order, hang together in Dempsey Indoor / Skylar Lin Visuals

The Biletnikoff Award, of course, is given to the nation's top college receiver and is named for Fred Biletnikoff, a consensus All-America selection for Florida State and a 14-year NFL vet for the Oakland Raiders, considered one of football's most sure-handed receivers at any level of the game.

Odunze comes off a 75-catch, 1,145-yard and 7-touchdown performance in 2022, apparently fully intending to shatter all of his numbers during this coming season.

Shephard, for one, is encouraging to go for it all, to be so good that people behind the award will have no choice but honor him.

"You make exceptional plays in exceptional moments in exceptional games," the UW coach said of the Biletnikoff criteria. "He wants to treat every single practice like that."

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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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